'  1 


'  '  i  '  :  •  .  I'/**-/ it-  '■»  <r  .v /j  J  «te » + 1 >• •*  v  i  *  #.i. « -vt '  y • ». » •/ «■ ; .  Vt-y  y«*y  v 


Ctbrarjp  oftrHe  "theological  ^eminarp 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 

PRESENTED  BY 

William  Hallock  Johnson 


77 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/modernmindvirginOOmcph 


THE 

THE 


MODERN 

AND 

VIRGIN  BI 


By 

g.  w.  McPherson 


This  hook  is  dedicated  to  the  deity  of  Our 
Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  Bible. 


YONKERS  BOOK  COMPANY 
34*  Saint  Andrews  Place 
Yonkers,  New  York 


Copyright,  1923,  by 
G.  W.  McPHEKSON 

in  the  United  States  of  America 
Published  July,  1923. 


Printed 


FOREWORD 


This  volume  comprises  a  brief  com¬ 
pendium  of  facts  regarding  the  Virgin 
Birth  of  Christ  and  presents  the  current 
objections  to  this  basic  Christian  doctrine 
with  answers  thereto.  The  discussion,  it 
is  hoped,  will  prove  valuable  to  the  aver¬ 
age  person  who  is  too  busy  to  make  a 
thorough  investigation  of  the  doctrines 
of  Christianity  and  to  the  scholar  as 
well.  Many  skeptical  minds  have  voiced 
opposition  to  the  incarnation  and  deity 
of  Christ.  There  are  also  students  in  our 
institutions  of  learning  who  have  been  led 
to  question  the  Virgin  Birth.  The  author 
has  endeavored  to  get  at  the  heart  of  the 
problem,  and  make  clear  that  all  classes 
of  intelligent  persons  can  accept,  without 
mental  reservation,  and  with  a  strong, 
glowing  faith  the  fact  of  our  Lord’s  super¬ 
natural  human  origin.  The  query  of  all 
queries  still  is,  “What  shall  I  do  then  with 
Jesus  which  is  called  Christ  V9  May  the 
reader  be  helped  by  this  message  to  an¬ 
swer  for  himself  this  momentous  question. 

The  Author. 


i 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I.  A  General  Approach  . 

II.  Objection . 

The  story  of  Christ’s  birth,  as  re¬ 
lated  by  Matthew  and  Luke,  is  an 
interpolation,  i.e.,  something  that 
was  added  to  these  Gospels  centur¬ 
ies  after  they  had  been  written. 

[II.  Objection . 

The  two  stories  of  the  Virgin  Birth, 
as  given  by  Matthew  and  Luke,  in¬ 
cluding  their  genealogical  records, 
are  contradictory. 

IV.  Objection . 

If  Jesus  had  a  miraculous  human 
origin  he  would  not  have  concealed 
so  momentous  a  fact  from  his  dis¬ 
ciples. 

V.  Objection . 

If  Jesus  Christ  had  been  Virgin 
born,  John  and  Paul  who  wrote 
most  of  the  New  Testament  would 
not  have  been  silent  regarding  it. 
5 


PAGE 

7 

41 

45 

53 

74 


6 

CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


VI.  Objection . 82 

The  disciples  of  Jesus  held  two  tra¬ 
ditions  regarding  him — one  that  he 
was  the  Son  of  God,  the  other  that 
He  was  the  son  of  Joseph;  and 
since  his  disciples  differed  as  to  this 
matter  why  should  men  concern 
themselves  over  it. 

VII.  Objection . 88 

The  story  of  the  Virgin  Birth  was 
suggested  to  Christ’s  disciples  by 
the  old  pagan  myths  of  the  gods 
becoming  incarnate  in  men,  and  is 
simply  a  poetic  description  of  the 
greatness  of  Jesus. 

VIII.  Objection . 102 

In  calling  himself  the  “Son  of 
Man”  did  not  Jesus  Christ  vir¬ 
tually  deny  the  story  of  his  Virgin 
Birth  ? 


The  Modern  Mind  and 
The  Virgin  Birth 


CHAPTER  I 

A  GENERAL  APPROACH 

This  message,  as  the  title  may  suggest, 
will  consist  of  an  examination  of  current 
objections  to  the  Virgin  Birth  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

The  terms  Virgin  Birth  and  Incarna¬ 
tion,  though  they  may  be  interpreted  dif¬ 
ferently,  will  be  used  interchangeably,  for 
it  is  difficult  to  see  how  either  one  can 
be  intelligently  employed  in  a  discussion 
concerning  our  Lord’s  human  origin, 
apart  from  the  other. 

It  is  hoped  that  the  present  chapter  will 
serve  to  prepare  for  what  will  follow,  by 
calling  attention  to  the  divergent  views  of 
those  who  accept  and  those  who  reject, 
as  fact,  the  Virgin  Birth,  and  to  the  in¬ 
creasing  religious  unrest  that  is  every¬ 
where  in  evidence  today. 

r 


8 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


Immaculate  Conception 

In  order  to  remove  confusion  in  the 
thought  of  some,  a  discrimination  should 
be  made  between  the  Virgin  Birth  and  the 
Immaculate  Conception.  The  latter  has 
reference  to  the  Virgin  Mary  and  may  be 
viewed  as  a  speculative  dogma  that  was 
established  centuries  after  our  Lord  was 
born.  This  dogma  is  an  hypothesis,  i.e., 
an  assumption  regarding  the  nature  of  the 
Virgin  for  which  there  is  found  no  basis 
in  Holy  Scripture.  The  dogma  affirms 
that  the  Virgin  was  absolutely  sinless, 
that  by  a  special  work  of  God  in  her 
nature,  she  was  conceived  without  sin, 
made  free  from  every  moral  imperfection 
and  tendency  to  evil,  and  thus  was  pre¬ 
pared  to  become  the  mother  of  our  Lord. 

Prior  to  its  acceptance  there  was  much 
opposition  to  this  dogma  in  the  early 
Church.  Augustine  and  others  of  note 
opposed  the  idea  that  Mary  was  free  from 
original  sin,  and  the  Protestant  Com¬ 
munions,  including  the  Reformers,  never 
accepted  it  as  a  Scripture  doctrine,  or 
as  necessary  to  the  sinlessness  of  our 
Lord.  They  have  always  believed  that 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


9 


our  Lord’s  perfection  as  man,  or  his  sin¬ 
lessness  and  triumph  over  evil  was  the 
result  of  his  Incarnation  and  not  of  an 
immaculate  conception  in  the  pre-natal 
life  of  his  noble  mother.  If  it  is  true  that 
the  secret  of  His  sinlessness  is  found  in 
a  perfect  humanity  which  He  inherited, 
would  it  not  follow  that  temptation  would 
have  been  impossible  to  Him,  and  that 
His  ideal  life  as  an  example  to  His  disci¬ 
ples  could  not  in  any  sense  have  been  the 
result  of  a  moral  effort  and  triumph  over 
evil  on  His  part!  Furthermore,  is  not 
such  a  view  calculated  to  reduce  the  ex¬ 
ample  of  our  Lord  to  that  bordering  on 
mockery!  From  the  New  Testament  it  is 
obvious  that  our  Lord  was  a  real  human 
being,  tempted  by  Satan  as  men  are  al¬ 
ways  tempted,  and  that  the  battle  he 
fought  against  temptation  was  a  real  and 
not  a  sham  battle.  The  following  Scrip¬ 
tures  will  make  clear,  without  further 
comment,  that  the  Protestant  contention 
regarding  the  mother  of  our  Lord  is  un¬ 
answerable,  and  in  the  light  of  which  it 
is  unscriptural  to  refer  to  the  Virgin 
Mary  as,  “the  mother  of  God.” 

“For  verily  he  took  not  on  him  the 


10 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


nature  of  angels;  but  he  took  on  him  the 
.seed  of  Abraham. 

“  Wherefore  in  all  things  it  behoved 
him  to  be  made  like  unto  his  brethren, 
that  he  might  be  a  merciful  and  faithful 
high  priest  in  things  pertaining  to  God, 
to  make  reconciliation  for  the  sins  of  the 
people. 

“For  in  that  he  himself  hath  suffered 
being  tempted,  he  is  able  to  succor  them 
that  are  tempted.’ ’ — Heb.  2:16-18. 

“  For  we  have  not  an  high  priest  which 
cannot  be  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our 
infirmities;  but  was  in  all  points  tempted 
like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin.” — Heb. 
4:15. 

The  Virgin  Birth 

By  the  Virgin  Birth  is  meant,  as  the 
Gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke  reveal,  that 
our  Lord  did  not  have  a  human  father, 
but  was  begotten  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and 
born  of  a  Virgin;  consequently  he  was  a 
new  type  of  man,  the  head  of  a  new  race 
of  spiritual  beings  as  Adam  was  the  head 
of  a  new  race  of  human  beings. 

Matthew  states  the  Incarnation  in  these 
words:  “Now  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ 
was  on  this  wise:  When  as  his  mother 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


11 


Mary  was  espoused  (as  we  say  today 
“engaged”)  to  Joseph,  before  they  came 
together,  she  was  found  with  child  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  ’  ’ — Matt.  1 : 18. 

In  Luke  the  Incarnation  is  set  forth  in 
the  words  of  the  angel  to  Mary:  “The 
Holy  Spirit  shall  come  upon  thee,  and  the 
power  of  the  Highest  shall  overshadow 
thee;  therefore  also  that  holy  One  that 
shall  be  born  of  thee  shall  be  called  the 
Son  of  God.” — Luke,  1:35. 

This  then  is  the  basic  doctrine  that  has 
always  been  believed  by  the  Christian 
people,  from  the  Apostles  down  to  the 
present,  but  that  is  denied  today  by  a  cer¬ 
tain  class  of  scholars,  some  of  whom  call 
themselves  scientists  and  religious  liberal- 
ists,  and  are  teachers  in  educational  insti¬ 
tutions  and  preachers,  here  and  there,  in 
Christian  pulpits. 

Investigation 

If  it  is  true,  as  few  will  deny,  that  there 
appears  to  be  a  growing  skepticism  re¬ 
garding  the  Virgin  Birth  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  then  the  hour  has  arrived 
when  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Christian 
people  should  become  informed  as  to  the 


12 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


basis  for  belief  in  this  doctrine.  Silence 
and  indifference  in  a  time  like  this  are 
calculated  to  misrepresent  and  do  much 
harm  to  the  future  of  Christianity.  The 
cause  and  honor  of  our  Lord  demand, 
therefore,  that  some  pertinent  questions 
should  be  asked  and  answered.  Thought¬ 
ful  men  everywhere,  in  pulpit  and  pew, 
should  face  the  present  religious  unrest 
and  pronounce  to  the  world  in  no  uncer¬ 
tain  fashion  their  reasons  for  faith  in  this 
doctrine.  Would  it  not  be  helpful  to  the 
Master’s  cause  to  discuss  some  such  ques¬ 
tions  as  the  following! 

1.  Is  there  something  concerning  this 
basic  doctrine  to  which  intelligent  minds 
may  reasonably  object,  and  if  so  what 
is  it! 

2.  What  is  the  real  problem  in  regard 
to  the  Virgin  Birth  of  our  Lord,  and  is  it 
to  be  found  in  this  doctrine  or  in  those 
who  reject  it! 

3.  Can  educated  people,  in  a  day  of  ad¬ 
vancing  knowledge,  scientific  progress  and 
searching  literary  criticism,  accept,  as 
fact,  the  Virgin  Birth! 

It  is  believed  that  the  objections  to  this 
doctrine,  as  found  in  infidel  and  rational- 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


13 


istic  literature,  are  not  the  result  of  new 
knowledge  but  are  characteristic  of  those 
who  are  dominated  by  a  naturalistic 
philosophy  of  the  universe  and  who  lack 
moral  comprehension  of  great  spiritual 
reality;  that  only  those  who  have  lost  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  or  who  have  never  had 
the  sense  of  the  presence  and  power  of 
God  in  their  lives  object  to  the  Virgin 
Birth.  This  form  of  unbelief  seems  to 
be  characteristic  of  many  persons  today, 
and  may  be  viewed  as  an  illustration  of 
the  subtle  dangers  of  naturalism  in  re¬ 
ligion,  or  of  the  age-long  problem  which 
is  always  inherent  in  the  nature  of  a  cer¬ 
tain  class  of  men — their  indisposition  to 
believe  in  an  Almighty  God  as  Creator. 

Contention  of  Modernists 
There  are  those  who  insist  that  thought¬ 
ful  men  can  no  longer  hold  to  the  faith 
of  our  fathers  and  that  Christianity  must 
be  restated  in  new  terms  that  are  in 
harmony  with  modern  science  and  accept¬ 
able  to  “modern  men,”  even  though  it  be 
at  the  cost  of  the  rejection  of  those  old 
cherished  Bible  doctrines  which,  for  nine¬ 
teen  hundred  years,  the  Christian  people 


14 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


have  believed  and  loved,  which  doctrines, 
they  say,  we  must  cast  aside,  as  we  would 
a  worn-out  garment,  and  accept  in  their 
place  the  vague,  indefinite  and  everchang- 
ing  postulates  and  conclusions  of  science 
and  philosophy. 

Rationalists  generally  affirm  that  6 ‘  mod¬ 
ern  men”  have  a  new  conception  of  God 
and  the  universe  which  forbids  belief  in 
miracles,  and  which  compels  them  to  aban¬ 
don  the  age-long  faith  in  a  personal 
Deity.  God,  to  them,  is,  in  reality,  not 
personal,  though  they  use  our  Christian 
terms  and  address  Him  as  Father,  but, 
rather,  an  abstract  philosophic  conception 
of  a  universal  Energy,  or  Principle,  which 
can  be  interpreted  only  in  the  light  of 
evolution,  and  by  men  of  science;  conse¬ 
quently  they  argue  for  the  necessity  of  a 
new  and  everchanging  theology  which, 
they  affirm,  must  be  built  to  harmonize 
with  the  new  and  everchanging  and  en¬ 
larging  conception  of  God,  the  universe, 
and  advancing  scientific  knowledge.  Since, 
they  say,  the  miracles,  including  the  Vir¬ 
gin  Birth,  cannot  be  made  to  fit  into  this 
new  conception  of  God  and  the  universe, 
belief  in  them  must  be  abandoned.  They 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


15 


tell  us  that  to  believe  in  the  Virgin  Birth 
implies  a  rejection  of  scientific  truth, 
that  this  doctrine  runs  counter  to  natural 
law,  and  we  should  bravely  face  the  facts, 
welcome  the  new  light  of  science,  take 
what  is  sound  out  of  the  wreckage  of  the 
old  beliefs,  and  with  the  new  views  seek 
to  win  “modern  men”  to  a  new  faith  in 
a  new  universe,  a  new  Christ,  a  new  Bible 
and  a  new  conception  of  God.  This  state¬ 
ment  is  not  exaggerated  or  overdrawn  as 
the  more  candid  of  the  modernists  them¬ 
selves  will  admit.  If  the  Christian  world 
will  not  accept  them  as  the  true  leaders 
and  prophets  of  “the  new  age,”  they  de¬ 
clare  that  the  masses  will,  and  that  the 
i 6  thinking  people  ’  ’  will  forsake  the 
churches  leaving  them  to  wither  up  and 
perish  from  what  they  term  4  4  the  dry 
rot  of  a  dead  theology.” 

On  the  other  hand  there  are  those  who 
represent  Evangelical  Christianity  and 
who  affirm  that  the  biblical  revelation  of 
a  personal  God  as  Creator  constitutes  the 
only  true  conception,  and  that  the  Bible 
in  all  its  teachings  is  in  harmony  with 
exact  science. 

Mr.  James  T.  Bowron  of  Birmingham, 


16 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


Alabama,  a  thoughtful  and  able  layman, 
who  made  a  valuable  review  of  the  manu¬ 
script  for  this  book,  portions  of  which  are 
incorporated  in  the  text,  said  among  other 
comments,  part  of  which  will  be  quoted 
later : 

“  Mankind  must  be  divided  into  two 
classes,  those  who  do  believe  and  those 
who  do  not  believe  in  a  personal  Deity 
who  was  a  Creator.  Those  who  do  not 
believe  in  a  personal  Deity  and  Creator 
may  be,  and  are  asked,  en  passant ,  If  you 
do  not  believe  in  a  personal  God  as 
Creator,  how  did  this  world  come  to  exist 
as  it  is  today!  Such  agnostics  are  pre¬ 
cluded  from  claiming  that  the  world  has 
always  been  as  it  is  today,  because  every 
scientist,  without  exception,  will  agree 
that  geology  shows  us  the  earth  as  it 
exists  represents  a  sequence  of  changes, 
with  materially  differential  conditions  ex¬ 
isting  from  one  epoch  to  another,  during 
which  animal  life,  and  especially  the  more 
complicated  and  delicate  human  life,  could 
not  have  existed.  With  our  knowledge  of 
erosion  and  sedimentary  deposition  and 
of  atmospheric  conditions  during  the  car¬ 
boniferous  period,  we  can  say  definitely 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


17 


that  man  could  not  have  lived  upon  the 
earth  until  the  post-glacial  period  was 
ended,  which  is  a  period  comparatively 
recent  and  by  no  means  far  removed  from 
the  records  of  antiquity  open  to  the  ar¬ 
chaeologists  in  Egypt  and  Assyria.  Every 
school  boy  learns  the  axiom  “Ex  nihilo 
nihil  fit.”  When  the  world  was  without 
form  and  void,  before  it  had  passed 
through  the  sequences  which  are  read  by 
geologists  as  from  a  book,  there  must 
have  been  some  force  to  produce  and  de¬ 
velop  the  extremely  complicated  process 
of  animal  and  vegetable  life  which  now 
exists.  It  may  suffice  to  ask  the  non¬ 
believer  in  God  as  Creator  to  find  some 
method  of  accounting  for  this  creation 
and  development  and  leave  him  to  solve 
the  problem  while  we  pass  on  to  the 
other  class  of  men,  namely,  those  who  do 
believe  in  God  as  a  Creator.  ” 

This  then  is  the  situation  we  are  com¬ 
pelled,  as  lovers  of  God  and  his  truth, 
to  face  today,  and  to  examine  with  the 
most  painstaking  care  and  see  if  what  the 
modernists  are  telling  is  true  as  to  both 
science  and  Revelation.  Remember  that 
this  whole  question  of  a  personal  God  and 


18 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


of  Creation  has  a  direct  bearing  upon 
the  Virgin  Birth  of  onr  Lord,  because  it 
brings  ns  face  to  face  with  the  question 
of  the  integrity  and  authority  of  the 
Scriptures.  The  Scriptures  clearly  teach 
that  our  Lord  was  horn  miraculously.  The 
modernists  say  that  the  story  of  our 
Lord’s  human  origin  is  a  myth.  Surely, 
if  the  Virgin  Birth  is  only  a  myth  we 
should  know  it;  if  it  is  true  we  should 
know  it.  The  churches  are  called  to  study 
for  themselves  the  objections  to  this  great 
doctrine  and  see  whether  the  new  views 
of  modernists  are  worthy  of  acceptance. 
If,  e.g.,  it  is  evident  that  what  they  say 
regarding  the  origin  and  history  of  man 
and  of  the  Virgin  Birth  and  Deity  of  our 
Lord  is  not  supported  by  facts  it  is  only 
reasonable  to  believe  that  they  are  in 
error  in  regard  to  that  which  they  claim 
to  be  the  true  basis  for  a  new  Christian 
faith. 

Incarnation  and  Science 

The  Christian  world  is  compelled  today 
to  face  this  old,  yet  new,  perennial  prob¬ 
lem  as,  perhaps,  never  before,  and  ask: 
Is  it  true  that  the  Virgin  Birth  of  our 


AND  THE  yiRGIN  BIRTH 


19 


Lord  is  in  conflict  with  science  and  there¬ 
fore  cannot  be  believed  by  “modern  men” 
who  are  in  sympathy  with  new  knowledge  ? 

The  position  taken  in  this  discussion  is, 
that  “modern  men,”  all  classes  of  intelli¬ 
gent  persons  can  accept  this  doctrine  of 
Christianity,  without  mental  reservation, 
and  with  a  strong,  glowing  faith,  that  the 
Virgin  Birth  is  not  in  conflict  with  science, 
and  that  the  religious  problems  which  per¬ 
plex  men  should  be  dealt  with  frankly  and 
fully.  It  hardly  needs  be  stated  that 
Christianity  is  not  the  enemy  of  science, 
for  between  God’s  two  great  books — the 
Bible  and  Nature — there  is  no  conflict.  To 
quote  Sir  Robert  Anderson:  “Never  until 
our  own  times  have  Scripture  and  science 
been  (so  far)  in  accord,  but  the  changes 
that  have  harmonized  them  have  been  in 
science  and  not  in  Scripture.”  We  should 
eagerly  assimilate  the  results  of  true 
science.  The  laboratory  need  not  be  the 
enemy  of  God  and  his  truth.  Science  has 
made  all  men  her  debtors.  The  results  of 
science  have  tended  to  confirm  rather  than 
disprove  the  Bible,  as  modem  archaeology 
and  geology  abundantly  bear  witness. 
Professor  Dana,  the  eminent  geologist, 


20 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


declared  that,  “the  first  chapter  of  Gene¬ 
sis  and  science  are  in  accord.” 

It  is  well  to  remember  that  many  noted 
scientists  have  affirmed  their  belief  in  the 
Incarnation.  Even  so  great  a  scientist  as 
Hnxley — the  agnostic — while  rejecting  the 
Virgin  Birth  on  other  grounds,  said  that 
on  scientific  grounds  he  had  no  objection 
to  it. 

The  Rev.  J.  Wilson  Sutton,  D.D.,  of 
New  York  has  recently,  by  request  of  his 
congregation,  published  a  sermon  which 
he  preached  in  Trinity  Chapel,  entitled: 
“Birth  From  A  Virgin,”  and  in  which 
he  has  given  facts  of  much  value.  We 
take  the  liberty  to  quote  him: 

“Those  who  would  have  us  give  up  the 
Virgin  Birth  on  scientific  grounds  only 
succeed  in  leading  us  into  a  serious  scien¬ 
tific  difficulty.  Since  the  beginning  of  the 
world,  millions  upon  millions  of  children 
have  been  born  of  human  mothers  through 
the  agency  of  human  fathers,  and  never 
has  it  been  known  that  the  union  of  human 
father  and  human  mother  brought  into 
the  world  other  than  a  human  person. 
But  Jesus  Christ  is  a  Divine  Person  and 
to  claim  that  He  came  into  the  world  in 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


21 


the  way  that  human  persons  come  into 
it  is  to  take  a  thoroughly  unscientific 
position  ....  Our  Lord  has  a  human 
mother  because  He  has  a  human  nature; 
He  has  a  Divine  Father  because  He  is  a 
Divine  Person.  His  human  nature  was 
brought  into  being  and  united  with  His 
Divine  Person  through  the  operation  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  because,  while  a  human 
father  in  union  with  a  human  mother 
could  have  produced  a  human  nature,  and 
have  brought  into  the  world  a  human 
person,  a  human  father  in  union  with  a 
human  mother  could  not  possibly  have 
brought  into  the  ivorld  a  Divine  Person, 
or  united  a  human  nature  with  a  Divine 
Person,  except  by  running  absolutely 
counter  to  the  natural  law  of  which  people 
make  so  much.  I  am  not  prepared  to  say 
that  God  coidd  not  have  brought  His  Di¬ 
vine  Son  into  the  world  through  the 
agency  of  St.  Joseph  and  St.  Mary.  1 
am  prepared  to  say  that  if  He  had  done 
so  He  woidd  have  violated  the  recognized 
and  universally  scientific  law  that  the 
union  of  human  father  and  human  mother 
brings  into  the  world  a  human  person, 


22 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


and  that  in  so  far  this  law  would  have 
been  discredited 

But  it  is  the  boast  of  modernists  that 
this  great  doctrine  is  in  conflict  with 
science.  They  say,  “When  science  proves 
it  we  will  believe  it.”  What  childish  non¬ 
sense  !  Science,  while  it  has  made  a  great 
contribution  to  man’s  comfort,  health  and 
knowledge,  can  prove  but  little  in  the 
realm  of  the  supernatural.  And  we  are 
now  dealing  with  a  supernatural  event 
in  human  history.  Science  can  help  us 
to  a  more  perfect  understanding  of  the 
laws  of  nature  and  its  phenomena,  but 
there  is  a  line  beyond  which  science  can¬ 
not  pass.  In  dealing  with  religion  the 
theologian  can  well  afford  to  say  to  the 
scientist,  hands  off.  Theology,  which  is 
the  science  of  God,  science  cannot  con¬ 
struct.  Even  in  the  realm  of  natural 
phenomena  science  has  made  slow  prog¬ 
ress  and  cannot  explain  many  of  the 
most  common  yet  age-long  problems. 
Take,  e.g.,  the  problem  of  sleep.  Have 
scientists  explained  sleep?  Of  course 
they  do  not  refuse  to  sleep  because  its 
mystery  has  baffled  them.  They  resign 
themselves  once  in  every  twenty-four 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


23 


hours  to  this  good  old  doctor,  and  out  of 
every  fifty  years  they  are  unconscious 
about  sixteen  years.  Of  course  scientists 
do  not  refuse  to  eat  because  they  cannot 
fully  explain  how  food  is  translated  into 
blood  and  bone  and  muscle  and  nerves 
and  brain  cells.  Have  they  faith  in  the 
dining-room  and  not  in  the  Church  and 
the  Word  of  God?  Do  they  deny  the  fact 
of  gravitation  because  they  do  not  under¬ 
stand  gravitation!  Do  they  hide  them¬ 
selves  from  the  sun’s  rays  because  they 
are  yet  unable  to  analyze  all  the  actual 
and  potential  elements  and  powers  of 
light  and  heat?  If  science  proceeds  on 
the  assumption  that  all  phenomena  in 
nature  are  the  result  of  natural  causes, 
why  should  the  Christian  people  be 
viewed  as  “unscientific,”  because  they 
ascribe  a  supernatural  cause  to  the  pres¬ 
ence  in  history  of  a  supernatural  person? 
Some  day  men  may  be  able  to  understand 
all  the  secrets  of  nature.  Most  scientists 
believe  this.  The  Christian  Revelation 
affirms  that  some  day  “we  shall  know 
even  as  also  we  are  known,”  and  this  in¬ 
cludes  knowledge  of  all  natural  and  spir¬ 
itual  phenomena,  including  the  Virgin 


24 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


Birth.  It  is  not  stating  it  too  strongly  to 
affirm  that,  in  the  light  of  all  the  facts 
connected  with  our  Lord’s  life  and  teach¬ 
ing,  it  is  unscientific  to  deny  or  reject,  as 
an  article  of  faith,  the  Virgin  Birth,  and 
that  such  a  denial,  or  even  a  neutral  at¬ 
titude  toward  it,  is  calculated  to  challenge, 
not  alone  the  testimony  of  Scripture  but 
also  any  reasonable  hypothesis,  and  to 
stultify  our  highest  intelligence.  More¬ 
over,  if  those  who  assume  this  attitude 
are  scientists  or  Christians  then  reason¬ 
able  men  must  be  at  a  loss  to  understand 
how  they  can  be  either. 

Incarnation  and  Reason 

In  the  realm  of  cold  logic,  the  facts, 
when  understood,  will  argue  for  accep¬ 
tance  of  the  Virgin  Birth  of  our  Lord. 
Is  there  a  sane,  rational  person  who 
claims  that  he  can  account  for  the  re¬ 
markable  personality,  teachings  and  mira¬ 
cles  of  our  Lord  and  yet  deny  his  Incar¬ 
nation!  Let  the  religious  liberalists,  who 
are  vocal  in  their  eulogies  of  science,  ex¬ 
plain  Jesus  Christ.  We  challenge  them  to 
the  task,  and  we  welcome  their  explana¬ 
tion.  They  will  indulge  in  evasions  or 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


25 


denials  but  they  will  not  attempt  the  im¬ 
possible  without  giving  to  men  a  bisected, 
distorted,  fragmentary,  mutilated  Christ 
— a  counterfeit  and  not  the  real  Christ  of 
the  Gospels.  It  is  easy  for  unreasoning 
minds  to  deny  the  Virgin  Birth,  to  pull 
down  and  destroy,  but  have  they  an  ex¬ 
planation  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ? 
There  is  a  radicalism  in  religion  as  un¬ 
sound  and  untrue  as  the  radicalism  in 
Russian  Socialism,  but  it  is  only  the 
fatigue  of  a  formal  religion  when  men 
have  not  had  the  experience  of  Christ  in 
their  lives,  or  the  moral  stamina  to  keep 
it  up.  Their  theories  are  not  based  on 
sound  reasoning  or  Scriptures;  they  are 
merely  the  froth  and  foam  of  their  fancy; 
they  have  no  foundation  in  fact ;  they  can¬ 
not  stand  the  light  of  investigation  and 
truth;  they  perish  in  the  light  of  day. 
But  notwithstanding  the  irrationality  of 
Modernism,  many  uninformed  persons 
who  cannot  think  for  themselves  and 
weigh  evidence  have  been  deceived  and 
led  astray  from  the  Christian  faith  by 
persistent  misrepresentations  of  the  truth. 
Those  who  believe  the  Virgin  Birth,  there¬ 
fore,  and  others  are  called  upon  to  make 


26 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


a  fresh  study  of  this  ancient  Christian 
doctrine.  The  Church  can  well  afford  to 
welcome  investigation  of  her  time-honored 
faith,  the  foundations  of  which  are  im¬ 
movable.  We  have  no  fear  of  a  search¬ 
ing  criticism  of  the  truth,  for  honest  crit¬ 
icism  will  only  strengthen  faith,  awaken 
hope  and  intensify  love  by  making  clear 
the  great  significance  of  the  Virgin  Birth 
of  our  Lord.  This  fact  will  be  seen  more 
clearly  in  its  relation  to  the  life  and 
teachings  of  our  Lord,  as  the  fulfilment 
of  ancient  prophecy,  as  that  momentous 
event  in  which  we  see  a  new  disclosure 
of  God’s  great  plan  of  making  known  his 
love  and  salvation  for  men.  Thus  will  the 
Incarnation  shine  forth  with  fresh  signifi¬ 
cance  and  in  a  new  and  radiant  splendor. 

Incarnation  and  Faith 

Much  of  the  difficulty  with  those  who 
deny  the  miraculous  conception  of  our 
Lord  is  due  to  an  inadequate  or  false  idea 
of  the  proper  function  or  fundamental 
place  of  faith  in  man’s  life.  The  ration¬ 
alists  underestimate  faith,  yet  they  un¬ 
consciously  assert  it  and  continuously  act 
upon  it.  Men  live  from  day  to  day  be- 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


27 


cause  they  yield  their  life  to  that  which 
they  do  not  understand.  What  the  Apos¬ 
tle  Paul  declared,  in  reference  to  the 
secret  of  a  continuous  Christian  life,  when 
he  said,  “We  walk  by  faith, ”  applies  also 
to  all  men.  All  human  action,  as  all  ex¬ 
perience  in  the  divine  life,  is  conditioned 
on  faith.  Why  should  men  object  to  the 
proper  function  of  faith  in  their  attitude 
to  God  and  to  his  method  of  making  him¬ 
self  known?  Here  is  found  an  illustration 
of  the  unreason  of  reason,  or  the  irra¬ 
tionality  of  those  who  reject  the  Virgin 
Birth.  Has  not  our  Lord  ever  baffled  ex¬ 
planation  on  natural  grounds?  But  has 
faith  no  function  to  perform,  no  part  to 
play  here  in  a  reasonable  study,  or  cor¬ 
rect  understanding  of  Jesus  Christ? 
Surely  this  applies  with  force  and  unan¬ 
swerable  logic  to  the  Scripture  account  of 
the  human  origin  of  our  Lord.  It  is  un¬ 
scientific,  unreasonable  and  in  conflict  with 
true  faith  to  deny  the  Incarnation.  By 
accepting  this  doctrine  time  and  expe¬ 
rience  will  demonstrate  the  wisdom  of 
faith. 


28 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


Incarnation  and  Miracles 

One  of  the  common  objections  to  the 
Virgin  Birth  is  that  miracles  do  not  hap¬ 
pen.  Doubtless  from  God’s  standpoint 
there  are  no  miracles,  but  from  man’s 
point  of  view  there  are  events  in  human 
history  which  are  properly  viewed  as 
miraculous.  God  does  not  violate  his  own 
laws,  but  he  can  bring  into  play  a  new 
law  or  a  law  regarding  which  men  are  to¬ 
tally  ignorant.  It  is  a  miracle  to  men; 
it  is  natural  to  God.  “For,  how  many 
years,”  says  Mr.  Bowron,  “after  we 
transmitted  our  telegraphic  messages 
along  a  wire,  elapsed  without  our  dis¬ 
covering  that  we  could  send  the  messages 
without  the  wire!  For  how  many  years 
have  we  believed  that  none  could  see  into 
the  inside  of  a  box,  or  a  man’s  pocket- 
book  folded  up  in  his  pocket,  or  into  his 
stomach,  and  yet,  today,  with  the  V-ray 
we  have  not  the  least  difficulty  in  obtaining 
these  results  which  would  have  appeared 
as  miracles  to  previous  generations,  but 
only  because  we  know  more  of  God’s  laws 
which  have  always  been  in  existence,  but 
simply  we  did  not  know  them  until  now. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


29 


No  one  can  explain  by  what  law,  or  by 
what  suspension  of  law  by  God,  the  con- 
tripetal  force  is  suspended  when  a  comet 
is  at  its  perihelion  and  about  to  be  burned 
up,  and,  on  the  contrary,  the  centrifugal 
force  is  suspended  when  the  comet  is  at 
its  aphelion  and  in  danger  of  being  at¬ 
tacked  by  the  superior  gravitation  forces 
of  some  other  solar  or  stellar  system. 
Scientists  above  all  men  who  know  these 
wonderful  things  to  be  true  should  be  the 
very  last  to  cavil  at  recorded  demonstra¬ 
tions  of  God’s  power.” 

To  affirm  that  miracles  do  not  happen, 
or  that  God  cannot  work  above  man’s  rea¬ 
son,  or  beyond  man’s  comprehension  of 
phenomena,  is  to  postulate  a  false  view 
of  man  and  to  place  God  in  a  sorry  plight 
indeed.  It  is  to  assume  that  men  are 
fully  competent  to  determine  what  God 
can  or  cannot  do,  how  he  works  or  must 
not  work,  and  that  men  know  all  about 
natural  law.  All  this  is  involved  in  a 
denial  of  miracles.  And  is  not  such  an 
assumption  both  irrational  and  foolish? 
Is  it  not  a  greater  assumption  than  to  be¬ 
lieve  that  God  is  not  a  slave  in  his  uni¬ 
verse,  and  that,  to  suit  his  own  purpose, 


30 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


lie  can,  if  needs  be,  in  order  to  reveal  bis 
power  and  love,  change  a  machine  which 
he  himself  has  made?  If  this  is  the  prop¬ 
er  conception  of  God  and  of  his  world, 
and  if  he  has  created  his  universe  in  any 
such  mechanical  fashion,  it  follows  that 
he  cannot  work  a  miracle  in  it,  “and 
there  is  no  point  in  our  arguing  in  de¬ 
fense  of  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ.’ ’ 

Those  who  argue  against  the  Incarna¬ 
tion  on  the  ground  that  miracles  do  not 
happen  should  be  ready  to  explain  what 
appears  to  be  the  greatest  of  all  miracles, 
the  origin  of  all  life,  of  man,  birds,  beasts, 
lishes,  etc.  etc.  Is  not  the  beginning  of 
human  life,  e.g.,  an  unsolved  mystery? 
Science  cannot  help  us  here.  At  best  the 
only  reasonable  hypothesis  or  affirmation 
is  to  say,  in  the  language  of  Scripture, 
“In  the  beginning  God  created.”  Has 
the  evolutionist  any  other  explanation  to 
give?  Evolution  deals  only  with  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  life;  it  cannot  be  defined  as 
creation.  And  what  more  can  be  affirmed 
regarding  the  problem  of  moral  conscious¬ 
ness?  Is  not  this  also  a  miracle  to  men? 
As  Tennyson  well  expressed  it: 

“This  main  miracle  that  thou  art  thou.” 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


31 


Whatever  our  theory  of  development  and 
moral  consciousness,  we  cannot  escape  the 
fact  of  origin.  “We  know,”  as  Mr.  Bow- 
ron  reminds  us,  “how  life  is  transmitted, 
but  we  have  absolutely  no  shadow  of  in¬ 
formation  as  to  how  life  in  any  depart¬ 
ment  of  nature  began,  except  as  we  derive 
our  knowledge  from  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
recognized  by  evangelical  churches  as  the 
only  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  prac¬ 
tice.”  As  Mr.  Bryan  stated  it  to  the 
writer:  “The  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ  is 
no  more  a  mystery  than  my  birth,  only  it 
is  different.”  “In  the  beginning”  God 
must  have  created  a  body  or  those  poten¬ 
tialities  of  life  which  developed  rapidly 
into  a  body.  But  could  not  the  Creator 
produce  a  new  and  distinct  type  of  body 
for  the  special  manifestation  of  himself 
to  men,  as  the  Scriptures  reveal  he  did 
do  in  the  person  of  our  Lord?  “Where¬ 
fore  when  he  cometh  into  the  world,  he 
saith,  .  .  .  but  a  body  hast  thou  pre¬ 
pared  me.” — Heb.  10:5. 

To  quote  Mr.  Bowron  again:  “The  be¬ 
lief  that  the  Infinite  God  planned  and 
created  the  universe  in  whole  involves  the 
power  to  create  in  part.  If  any  believer 


32 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


in  God  as  Creator  believes  in  his  power 
to  have  created  the  first  man  without  that 
man  having  a  mother,  how  can  he  limit 
the  Creator’s  power  and  refuse  to  believe 
that  it  was  quite  as  easy  for  God  to  create 
a  body  either  alone  or  in  parturio  with¬ 
out  a  human  father?  Obviously  there  is 
no  greater  difficulty  as  to  the  recorded 
birth  of  Jesus  Christ  without  a  father 
than  the  recorded  creation  of  Adam  with¬ 
out  a  mother.  ...  To  the  Scriptures 
alone  we  must  look,  as  believers  in  a  God 
as  Creator,  to  see  how  he  created  and  how 
he  originated  life,  and  we  find  it.” 

Strange  Silence 

Does  it  not  appear  strange,  in  the  light 
of  the  well-known  propaganda  of  the  mod¬ 
ernists,  in  printed  page,  in  pulpit,  pew, 
university  and  conventions,  that  Christian 
men,  who  believe  the  Bible  to  be  a  revela¬ 
tion  of  truth  from  God,  remain  so  pas¬ 
sive  and  silent?  Do  they  fear  to  af¬ 
firm  their  faith  in  the  biblical  doctrines 
of  our  holy  religion?  Can  they  imagine 
that  this  onslaught  on  vital  Christian 
truth  will  blow  over,  spend  itself  and  be 
forgotten,  and  to  ignore  it  and  those  who 


AND  THE  .VIRGIN  BIRTH 


33 


are  'undermining  tlie  foundation  of  the 
Church  is  the  wisest  method  to  pursue? 
Surely  such  an  attitude  is  unworthy  of 
reasonable  men.  There  are  those  who 
seem  to  believe  that  the  wisest  procedure 
is  to  preach  Christ  and  him  crucified  and 
risen  and  ignore  the  arguments  which  the 
modernists  employ  in  their  attack  upon 
the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  and  the  deity 
of  our  Lord.  But  how  can  Christ  and 
him  crucified  be  intelligently  preached 
today  without  also  meeting  the  arguments 
•  of  those  who  are  denying  the  inspiration 
and  authority  of  the  Book?  “If  the  foun¬ 
dations  be  destroyed,  what  can  the  right¬ 
eous  do?” — Ps.  11:3.  In  every  church 
there  are  men  and  women  who  are  greatly 
confused  because  they  have  learned  the 
point  of  view  of  those  who  deny  the  integ¬ 
rity  of  the  Bible  and  teach  that  the  indi¬ 
vidual  consciousness  is  the  basis  of  auth¬ 
ority  in  Christianity.  Surely,  the  churches 
must  stoutly  refute  this  heresy  or  become 
a  party  to  the  work  of  the  boldest  religi¬ 
ous  embezzlers  of  the  ages.  If  the 
churches  continue  to  ignore  it,  or  fail  to 
meet  the  problem  they  may  as  well  have 
no  constitution.  Yet  timid  Christians,  in 


34 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


pulpit  and  pew,  remain  silent  while  wit¬ 
nessing  the  subtle  destruction  of  the  Gos¬ 
pel.  “Do  they  want  our  children  to  deny 
the  redemption  of  the  cross,  and  our  stu¬ 
dents  taught  this  rationalism  and  filling 
our  pulpits  and  controlling  our  churches? 
Men  can  remain  in  many  of  the  chief  pul¬ 
pits  of  the  land  and  deny  the  holy  nativity 
of  our  Lord  and  the  churches  are  becom¬ 
ing  Unitarian  while  we  sleep.” 

The  Great  Fundamentals 

It  should  be  remembered  that  it  is 
against  the  integrity  and  inspiration  of 
the  Bible  that  Modernism  is  making  its 
attack  by  substituting  man’s  authority  in 
place  of  the  Sacred  Word.  Rev.  Dr.  Wil¬ 
liam  P.  Merril,  pastor  of  the  Brick  Pres¬ 
byterian  Church,  New  York,  is  quoted  by 
the  press  as  having  said  in  a  recent  ser¬ 
mon  that,  ‘  4  those  will  win  in  the  modern 
religious  problem  who  reveal  most  of  the 
Christ  spirit.”  That  sounds  like  the 
words  of  Canon  Barnes  of  London,  spoken 
before  the  British  Association  of  Scien¬ 
tists  in  1921 — “To  the  Christian  who  ac¬ 
cepts  modem  biological  principles  the 
Christ  spirit  is  the  supreme  and  final 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


35 


power  in  the  evolution  of  man,”  by  which 
the  Canon  meant  that  modern  biological 
principles,  or  man’s  scientific  concep¬ 
tions,  are  the  basis  of  authority  in  reli¬ 
gion  and  that  to  this  type  of  man  the 
Christ  spirit  becomes  a  power  in  spiritual 
evolution.  It  is  to  the  modernist  a  mat¬ 
ter  of  small  moment  to  reject  the  Virgin 
Birth  of  Christ  and  his  teachings,  and  the 
interpretation  of  Christ  as  given  by  his 
Apostles — in  short  to  reject  the  Bible  as 
authority — but  it  is  a  matter  of  the  ut¬ 
most  gravity  to  reject  what  the  modernist 
calls  “the  Christ  spirit.”  Here  then  is 
found  a  concise  statement  of  the  decep¬ 
tive  phraseology  and  teaching  of  Modern¬ 
ism,  and  it  furnishes  likewise  a  striking 
illustration  of  inconsistency  in  dealing 
with  the  truth  concerning  Jesus  Christ. 
“If  ye  love  me  ye  will  keep  my  command¬ 
ments,”  are  our  Lord’s  words,  and  we 
must  test  the  spirit  of  men  by  their  atti¬ 
tude  to  Jesus  Christ,  who  said  that  his 
words  are  the  final  authority.  “Heaven 
and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my  words 
shall  not  pass  away.” 

This  misleading  phrase,  “the  Christ 
spirit,”  which  is  the  last  refuge  of  a  re- 


36 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


fined  and  subtle  unbelief,  is  much  em¬ 
ployed  today  by  the  spiritist,  evolutionist 
and  modernist — by  all  those,  in  fact,  who 
reject  the  inspiration  and  divine  author¬ 
ity  of  the  Bible.  But  how  can  men  con¬ 
sistently  exalt  or  emulate  the  spirit  of 
our  Lord  and  deny  the  supernatural 
Christ  of  the  Gospels!  They  say,  “emu¬ 
late  the  spirit  of  Christ,’ ’  while  at  the 
same  time  they  reject  the  fundamental 
teachings  of  Christ  regarding  himself,  and 
the  authority  and  inspiration  of  the  Bible 
which  our  Lord  endorsed,  calling  the  lat¬ 
ter  “dictation.”  To  them  “the  Bible  is 
only  the  product  of  men  expressing  their 
human  conceptions  of  God  under  the  nat¬ 
ural  providences  of  God  and  therefore 
constitute  but  man’s  growth  in  the  con¬ 
ception  of  God.”  They  say  “the  Bible  is 
full  of  errors  that  can  only  be  reviewed 
by  the  modern  scientific  mind  and  re¬ 
jected  at  will.”  The  purpose  of  those 
who  reject  the  Virgin  Birth  and  authority 
of  Christ,  therefore,  is  to  break  down  the 
authority  of  the  Bible  as  the  inspired 
word  of  God  and  the  Church  as  a  divine 
institution  and  get  control  of  the  churches. 
But  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that, 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


37 


“Christ  the  Living  Word  and  the  Bible 
the  Written  Word  must  stand  or  fall  to¬ 
gether .  These  are  the  two  great  funda¬ 
mentals  of  the  Christian  faith  which  find 
expression  at  the  Lord’s  table  where  be¬ 
lievers  proclaim  the  deity  of  Christ ,  his 
atoning  sacrifice  and  personal  return . 
Here  is  the  core  of  Fundamentalism. 
These  are  the  great  fundamentals  which 
make  a  fool  of  Modernism  and  its  monkey 
theology.” 

This  discussion  is  concluded  with  a 
further  quotation  from  Mr.  Bowron’s  able 
comments  on  the  contents  of  this  chapter: 

“The  Scriptures  themselves  are  sup¬ 
ported  in  their  accuracy  by  their  unity 
and  agreement  although  written  over  1800 
years — in  different  countries,  in  three  dif¬ 
ferent  languages,  by  men  ranging  from 
crowned  kings  to  herdsmen  and  fisher¬ 
men,  men  who  were  highly  learned  and 
men  who  were  quite  unlearned — and  yet 
all  agreeing  in  every  cardinal  point  of 
doctrine  and  giving  furthermore  informa¬ 
tion  of  an  historical,  personal,  geographi¬ 
cal  and  astronomical  nature,  which  when 
first  read  was  not  understood  but  which 
has  been  confirmed  after  the  invention  of 


38 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


the  telescope,  the  discovery  by  archaeolo¬ 
gists  of  ruins  covered  up,  and  inscriptions, 
letters  and  documents  which  had  been  for¬ 
gotten  for  thousands  of  years.  Their 
supernatural  origin  is  confirmed  by  the 
character  of  the  doctrines  taught  both  in 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  differen¬ 
tiating,  especially  in  the  latter  from  the 
teachings  proceeding  from  natural  men. 
Finally,  the  supernatural  character  and 
value  of  the  collection  of  books  under 
that  name  is  vouched  for  by  its  marvelous 
and  unique  preservation  through  the  ages 
when  all  other  books  of  similar  antiquity 
have  perished;  further  vouched  for  and 
mathematically  demonstrated  by  the  ex¬ 
traordinary  fulfilments  of  prophecy, 
working  out  in  many  cases  to  the  very 
month  and  day,  bearing  upon  such  events 
as  the  captivity  and  restoration  of  Israel, 
the  coming  of  the  Redeemer  as  to  time 
and  place  and  tribe,  his  rejection,  suffer¬ 
ings,  death  and  resurrection,  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  Jerusalem  under  the  Romans,  the 
subsequent  defilement  of  the  sanctuary  by 
the  Moslems,  the  termination  of  the  tem¬ 
poral  power  of  the  Pope,  the  gradual  re¬ 
moval  of  the  Moslem  power  from  the  de- 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


39 


I 


filement  of  the  sanctuary  in  Jerusalem, 
and  the  return  of  the  Jews  to  the  Holy 
Land.  These  predictions  are  so  numer¬ 
ous  and  fulfilled  with  so  much  accuracy  as 
to  preclude  any  possibility  of  chance  or 
coincidence,  and  the  original  prophecies 
have  been  preserved  throughout  the  in¬ 
tervening  centuries  by  the  non-believers 
in  Jesus  Christ,  the  Jews,  to  whom  were 
committed  the  oracles  of  God.  To  these 
Scriptures,  and  to  them  alone,  we  must 
look,  therefore,  as  our  authority.  ,  .  . 
They  alone  tell  how  God  formed  man  out 
of  the  dust  of  the  ground — and  that  is  all 
man  is  today — largely  water,  with  some 
organic  matter,  phosphorus  and  lime,  a 
little  sulphur,  salt,  etc.  It  does  not  re¬ 
quire  long  for  his  frame  to  return  to  the 
dust  from  which  it  came.  It  does  not 
say  that  God  made  man  out  of  a  plant,  or 
out  of  an  amoeba,  or  a  jelly  fish,  or  an 
amphibian,  or  a  lizard,  or  a  monkey,  but 
he  made  man  after  His  own  likeness  and 
He  breathed  into  him  the  breath  of  life, 
which  would  not  have  been  necessary  if 
He  had  caused  man  to  develop  out  of  some 
other  living  form  of  animal  life. ?  ’ 

This  lengthy  quotation  will  serve  to  re- 


40 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


mind  the  reader  of  the  fact  that  to  the 
Bible  and  the  Bible  alone  we  must  look 
for  onr  authority  as  to  creation,  redemp¬ 
tion  and  salvation,  and  when  Modernism 
casts  this  authority  aside,  it  is  like  a  ship 
adrift  upon  a  treacherous,  raging  sea, 
without  chart  and  compass,  whose  mari¬ 
ners  strive  in  the  stress  of  the  storm  and 
the  darkness  of  the  night  to  get  a  glimpse 
of  the  North  Star. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


41 


CHAPTER  II 

OBJECTION 

The  story  of  Christ’s  birth,  as  re¬ 
lated  by  Matthew  and  Luke,  is  an  in¬ 
terpolation,  i.e.,  something  that  was 
added  to  these  Gospels  centuries  after 
they  had  been  written. 

This  is  one  of  the  common  objections 
to  the  Virgin  Birth  which  is  frequently 
voiced  today. 

If  the  Christian  world  should  become 
convinced  that  this  proposition  is  estab¬ 
lished,  as  fact,  doubtless  some  radical 
changes  would  result  in  Christianity.  But 
when  the  truth  is  known,  it  will  be  seen 
how  utterly  baseless  is  this  objection,  for 
there  is  not  found  in  any  trustworthy 
literature,  ancient  or  modern,  the  slight¬ 
est  warrant  for  this  assumption. 

The  New  Testament,  as  we  have  it  to¬ 
day,  is  admitted  by  scholars  of  nearly 
every  shade  of  opinion,  to  have  been  writ¬ 
ten  before  the  close  of  the  first  century 


42 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


A.D.,  and  during  this  early  period  there 
is  the  most  conclusive  proof  that  the 
Christian  people  believed  in  the  Virgin 
Birth  of  Christ.  Moreover,  the  historic 
documents  which  serve  as  a  basic  for 
faith  in  the  Virgin  Birth  have  been  veri¬ 
fied  as  reliable  parts  of  the  earliest  known 
manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  Apostles  Creed,  in  its  earliest  form, 
is  known  to  have  been  in  existence  in  the 
early  part  of  the  second  century,  so  says 
Harnack,  Zahn  and  Kattenbusch,  and  in 
this  early  form  of  the  Creed  are  found 
these  words:  “Bom  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
and  the  Virgin  Mary. ’  ’ 

Ignatius  of  Antioch,  who  is  believed  to 
have  been  a  disciple  of  the  Apostles,  and 
who  by  some  scholars  is  claimed  to  have 
lived  from  about  90  to  150  A.D.,  speaks 
of  “the  virginity  of  Mary  and  her  child¬ 
bearing,’ ’  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  XIX. 

This  same  authority  also  says:  “Let  no 
man  be  called  good  who  mixes  good  with 
evil.  For  they  speak  of  Christ  not  that 
they  may  preach  Christ  but  that  they  may 
reject  Christ.  .  .  .  They  also  calumniate 
his  being  born  of  a  Virgin.  Letter  to 
the  Trallians  Chap.  VI. 


AND  THE  .VIRGIN  BIRTH 


43 


Dr.  Sutton’s  statement  in  the  following 
paragraph,  bearing  on  this  matter,  has 
for  its  basis  facts  that  are  generally 
known  by  biblical  students.  He  says: 

“The  chapters  in  Matthew  and  Luke  in 
which  the  record  of  the  Virgin  Birth  ap¬ 
pears,  are  found  in  all  unmutilated  manu¬ 
scripts  of  the  New  Testament — there  are 
many  such  manuscripts  but  from  none 
are  these  chapters  omitted — and  they  are 
found  in  all  versions  and  translations  of 
the  manuscripts  known  to  be  genuine. 
There  are  but  two  versions  in  which  they 
do  not  appear;  one  is  known  as  the  Gos¬ 
pel  of  the  Ebionites,  i.e.,  a  version  used 
by  a  sect  in  the  early  Church  which  denied 
the  divinity  of  Christ  and  therefore  could 
not  admit  that  he  was  born  in  an  unusual 
manner,  the  other  was  the  Gospel  of  Luke, 
used  by  a  man  named  Marcion,  a  strange 
person,  who  held  that  the  God  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  different  from  the  God  of 
the  New  Testament  and  taught  that  mat¬ 
ter  was  essentially  evil,  and  therefore 
could  not  consistently  accept  the  doctrine 
of  the  Incarnation.” — From,  “Born  of  a 
Virgin.” 

A  word  of  explanation  should  be  added 


44 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


to  Dr.  Sutton’s  reference  to  the  Gospel  of 
Luke  which  he  says  that  Marcion,  who 
denied  the  Incarnation,  had  in  his  pos¬ 
session.  Marcion  mutilated  this  Gospel, 
in  the  interest  of  his  strange  theories,  by 
cutting  out  the  story  of  the  Virgin  Birth. 

From  the  above  facts  it  is  therefore 
evident  that  this  objection  contains  not  a 
shred  of  truth  that  can  commend  it  to 
thoughtful  minds. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


45 


CHAPTER  III 

OBJECTION 

The  two  stories  of  the  Virgin  Birth, 
as  given  by  Matthew  and  Luke,  in¬ 
cluding  their  genealogical  records,  are 
contradictory. 

Here  also  is  another  objection  of  which 
much  has  been  said  in  recent  years. 

A  careful  study  of  the  records  in  Mat¬ 
thew  and  Luke  will  convince  any  honest 
seeker  after  the  truth  as  to  their  genuine¬ 
ness. 

Matthew  tells  the  story  from  Joseph’s 
point  of  view  and  Luke  tells  it  from 
Mary’s  point  of  view,  and  what  one  omits 
the  other  supplies,  one  being  supplemen¬ 
tary  to  the  other. 

As  might  well  be  expected,  Luke  goes 
more  into  detail  than  does  Matthew,  for 
Mary  knew  more  about  the  sacred  mys¬ 
tery  than  Joseph.  Both,  however,  agree 
in  the  central  fact  in  the  story — that 
Jesus  was  born  of  a  Virgin. 


46 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


As  Dr.  Sutton  well  says  in  his  sermon 
already  referred  to:  “If  we  had  only 
the  account  of  Matthew  we  should  be  left 
in  ignorance  as  to  the  perplexity  of  Mary, 
when  it  was  revealed  to  her  that  she  had 
been  chosen  to  be  the  Lord’s  mother.  If 
we  had  only  the  account  of  Luke  we 
should  know  nothing  of  Joseph’s  anxiety 
when  he  discovered  that  his  espoused  wife 
was  great  with  child.  Thus  the  two  rec¬ 
ords  form  a,  complete  whole,  and  while 
written  from  different  points  of  view  are 
consistent  in  every  detail.” 

Regarding  the  genealogies,  it  is  true 
that  they  present  problems  but  these  are 
not  insuperable,  and  cannot  in  anywise 
weaken  the  central  fact  that  Jesus  was 
born  of  a  Virgin.  These  problems  how¬ 
ever  have  been  cleared  up.  For  a  full 
discussion  of  this  matter,  the  reader  is 
referred  to  the  books  as  listed  below.* 


*“The  Virgin  Birth:  A  Critical  Examination” — 
by  T.  J.  Thorboum  (Soc.  for  Promoting  Christian 
Knowledge,  London,  or  Macmillan  Company,  New 
York). 

“Does  It  Make  Any  Difference?  or  the  Virgin 
Birth  of  Christ”— by  I.  M.  Haldeman,  D.  D.  (Phila. 
School  of  the  Bible). 

“The  Destructive  Denial,  or  Jesus  Not  Joseph’s 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


47 


All  great  authorities  agree  that  the 
genealogies  were  an  original  part  of  the 
Gospels  and  not  a  free  invention  of  the 
Evangelists  or  of  scribes  at  a  later  day, 
and  that  they  contain  no  insuperable  dif¬ 
ficulties  or  apparent  discrepancies  that 
cannot  be  satisfactorily  explained. 

But  our  opponents  say,  “Is  there  not  a 
contradiction  in  the  genealogy  in  Luke 
3:23?”  Let  us  see.  Here  are  Luke’s 
words : 

“And  Jesus  himself  began  to  be  about 
thirty  years  of  -age,  being,  as  was  sup¬ 
posed,  the  son  of  Joseph,  which  was  the 
son  of  Heli.” 

The  -objection  to  this  passage  is,  that 
while  Matthew  says  that  Joseph  was  the 
son  of  Jacob,  Luke  says  that  he  was  the 
son  of  Heli,  and  in  what  sense  then  could 
he  be  both  of  Jacob  and  Heli? 

Dr.  Scofield  in  commenting  on  this 
says : 

“He  could  not  be  by  natural  genera¬ 
tion  the  son  of  both  Jacob  and  Heli.  But 


Son” — by  Rev.  R.  E.  Neighbor  (Bible  Truth  Depot, 
Livenga,  Pa.). 

“The  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ” — by  James  Orr,  D.D. 
(Scribner’s  Sons,  New  York). 


48 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


in  Luke  it  is  not  said,  that  Heli  begat 
Joseph,  so  that  the  natural  explanation  is 
that  Joseph  was  the  son-in-law  of  Heli, 
who  was,  like  himself,  a  descendant  of 
David.  That  in  that  case  he  should  be 
called  son  of  Heli,  would  be  in  accord 
with  Jewish  usage.”— -C.  I.  Scofield’s  Ref¬ 
erence  Bible,  footnotes  on  Luke  3 : 23. 

To  what  Jewish  usage  does  Dr.  Sco¬ 
field  refer,  it  may  be  asked!  It  was  the 
custom  of  the  Jews  to  trace  the  line  of 
descent  through  the  father  who  was  the 
legal  head  of  the  household,  or  in  some 
cases  through  the  father-in-law,  and  this 
would  naturally  explain  the  apparent 
discrepancy  in  this  case. 

This  usage  may  account  for  the  name 
of  Joseph  being  found  in  the  record.  Thus 
note  Matthew’s  words:  “ and*  Jacob  begat 
Joseph  the  husband  of  Mary,  of  whom 
was  born  Jesus,  who  is  called  Christ.”— 
Matt.  1:16.  It  is  clearly  unfair  exegesis 
to  infer  from  these  words,  as  has  often 
been  done  by  captious  critics,  that  Mat¬ 
thew  intended  to  convey  the  idea  that 
Joseph  was  the  human  father  of  Jesus, 
for  the  context  plainly  shows  that  he 
meant  nothing  of  the  sort.  He  only  stated 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


49 


that  Joseph  was  the  husband  of  Mary, 
but  in  verse  eighteen  he  took  pains  to 
state  that  Joseph  was  her  espoused  hus¬ 
band.  In  this  same  verse  he  reveals  that 
at  this  time  Mary  was  with  child  by  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

Dr.  James  Orr  throws  light  on  this: 
“  Matthew  introduces  his  genealogy  for 
the  very  purpose  of  showing  that  Jesus 
had  the  legal  rights  of  a  son  of  Joseph. 
.  .  .  The  Evangelists  are  very  careful  in 
the  language  they  use.  Matthew  has  a 
periphrasis  expressly  to  avoid  this  idea 
that  Joseph  was  the  human  father  of 
Jesus,  4  Jacob  begat  Joseph  the  husband 
of  Mary  of  whom  was  born  Jesus,  who  is 
called  Christ.’  Luke  carefully  inserts  the 
clause,  ‘being  as  was  supposed  the  son  of 
Joseph,’  a  clause  found  in  all  the  texts.” 
— “The  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ,”  page 
101-102. 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  both  Luke  and 
Matthew  were  careful  not  to  say  that 
Jesus  was  the  natural  son  of  Joseph,  and 
that  the  common  objection  “If  Joseph 
were  not  the  father  of  Jesus  whv  was  his 

4/ 

name  given  in  the  genealogy  as  his 
father?”,  falls  empty  to  the  ground. 


50 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


The  above  illustrates  how  the  critic 
reads  into  the  Bible  what  is  not  there,  and 
how  superficial  or  ignorant  persons  would 
accept  his  words  without  investigating 
for  themselves — a  lamentably  common 
trait,  that  is  characteristic  of  many  of  our 
present-day  scholars  and  their  misguided 
students. 

In  no  true  sense  can  any  apparent  dis¬ 
crepancy  in  these  genealogical  accounts 
prove  their  errancy.  If  discrepancies 
seem  to  appear,  it  is  either  because  we 
may  not  be  in  possession  of  all  the  facts, 
or  what  is  more  likely,  we  fail  to  under¬ 
stand  these  records. 

To  illustrate  the  folly  of  building  an 
argument  against  the  historical  accuracy 
of  the  Bible  on  what  appears  as  alleged 
discrepancies,  we  will  let  a  case  in  the 
Old  Testament — the  death  of  Aaron — 
serve  our  purpose. 

In  Numbers  20 :  25-29  it  says  that  Aaron 
died  on  Mt.  Hor,  while  in  Deuteronomy 
10 : 6  it  says  that  Aaron  died  in  Mosera. 
This  case  has  often  been  used  by  the 
critics  as  conclusive  proof  that  the  Bible 
is  not  the  infallible  Word  of  God. 

But  what  are  the  facts  in  this  case? 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


51 


Authorities  say  that  the  significance  of 
Mosera  is  unknown,  hence  a  contradiction 
cannot  be  said  to  exist  between  two  words 
the  exact  meaning  of  one  of  which  is  un¬ 
known. 

Moreover,  it  is  the  opinion  of  Prof.  J. 
L.  Porter  that  Mosera  is  the  name  of  a 
general  district  in  which  Mt.  Hor  was 
situated,  and  Dr.  Haley  believes  that 
Mosera  signifies  a  stopping-place  at  the 
foot  of  Mt.  Hor.  If  the  particular  spot 
on  the  top  of  Mt.  Hor  where  Aaron  died 
had  no  place  name,  would  it  not  be  inevi¬ 
table  that  in  the  record  the  nearest  place 
that  had  a  name  would  be  mentioned  as 
the  place  where  Aaron  died?  Thus  it  is 
apparent  that  there  exists  no  discrepancy 
in  these  two  accounts.  Doubtless  this 
case  has  special  application  to  all  other 
apparent  discrepancies  in  the  Bible  in¬ 
cluding  the  genealogies  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 

In  the  case  of  the  latter  there  are  no 
contradictions,  and  the  average  mortal  as 
well  as  the  scholar  need  not  hesitate  to 
anchor  his  faith  to  these  inspired  records. 

The  story  of  the  Virgin  Birth,  includ¬ 
ing  the  lineage  of  Jesus,  is  natural,  rea- 


52 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


sonable  and  plain,  and  furnishes  the  most 
convincing  proof  of  their  genuineness. 
But,  alas,  how  often  is  the  Bible  miscon¬ 
strued  in  order  to  support  a  precon¬ 
ceived  opinion  or  bolster  up  a  false  hypo¬ 
thesis? 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


53 


CHAPTER  IV 

OBJECTION 

If  Jesus  had  a  miraculous  human 
origin  he  would  not  have  concealed  so 
momentous  a  fact  from  his  disciples. 

This  on  the  surface  sounds  like  a  plausi¬ 
ble  objection,  but  it  smacks  rather  of  the 
reasoning  of  school-boys  than  of  mature 
minds  and  honest  seekers  after  the  truth. 
It  is  the  argument  from  silence  which  has 
recently  been  stressed  by  Rev.  Harry 
Emerson  Fosdick,  D.D.,  and  others  in 
reference  to  John  and  Paul,  and  which 
will  be  examined  in  the  next  chapter. 

A  Presumptuous  Objection 

As  to  the  silence  of  the  Lord  Jesus  re¬ 
garding  his  Virgin  Birth,  is  it  not  pre¬ 
sumptive  to  speculate  on  what  he  should 
or  should  not  have  said!  John  is  the 
authority  for  saying  that  his  book  con¬ 
tains  only  a  mere  fragment  of  what  our 
Lord  had  said  and  done.  Our  Lord  also 


54 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


assured  his  disciples  that  he  had  many 
things  to  say  unto  them  but  they  could 
not  hear  them  now,  or  understand  or  be¬ 
lieve  them.— John  16:12.  To  argue  from 
our  Lord’s  silence  as  to  his  miraculous 
conception  is,  to  say  the  least,  begging 
the  question.  There  may  be  rare  cases 
where  this  sort  of  argument  is  permissi¬ 
ble,  where  all  the  circumstances  would 
naturally  and  logically  support  it,  but 
such  is  not  the  case  with  our  Lord,  for  he 
said  many  things,  as  we  shall  see  later, 
that  can  only  be  interpreted  and  under¬ 
stood  in  the  light  of  his  Virgin  Birth.  If 
the  argument  from  silence  is  admissible, 
then  it  should  work  both  ways.  For  in¬ 
stance,  our  Lord  who,  doubtless,  was  an 
ideal  member  of  Joseph’s  household, 
never  referred  to  Joseph  as  his  father, 
so  far  as  the  records  show,  though  he  did 
refer  to  Mary  as  his  mother. — John  19 :  26. 
Would  it  not  be  more  reasonable  to  sup¬ 
pose  that  had  the  story  of  His  Virgin 
Birth  been  untrue  He  would  have  denied 
it,  as  such  a  story  would  have  cast  serious 
reflection  upon  the  good  name  of  his 
mother?  But  after  having  said  this,  never¬ 
theless,  the  argument  from  silence  pro  or 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  55 

con  carries  little  weight  and  should  sel¬ 
dom  be  admitted  as  evidence.  There  is 
little  gained  by  premising  assumptions  of 
this  sort.  The  fact  of  the  Virgin  Birth 
was  a  matter  too  delicate  and  private  to 
be  discussed  openly.  But  this  much  is 
known,  the  sacred  story  had  become  cur¬ 
rent  in  our  Lord’s  day.  Elisabeth,  the 
mother  of  John  the  Baptist,  knew  it — 
Luke  1 :  39-45. — and  gradually  it  became 
the  common  possession  of  all  the  disci¬ 
ples.  So  stupendous  and  glorious  a  fact 
could  not  long  be  concealed. 

Virgin  Birth  Gradually  Disclosed 

We  are  now  discussing  a  great  matter 
in  the  heart  of  spiritual  reality,  a  matter 
that  is  vitally  related  to  the  disclosure  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God  and  the  appearance 
of  the  King,  and  also  to  the  method  of 
making  his  truth  known.  The  Incarna¬ 
tion  could  not  be  announced  by  our  Lord 
in  an  off-hand  manner,  as  if  he  were  mak¬ 
ing  known  a  principle  or  law  in  mathe¬ 
matics,  or  were  a  mere  reformer  agitat¬ 
ing  a  program  of  social  reconstruction, 
or  a  politician  submitting  to  men  a  poli¬ 
tical  platform.  God  is  never  in  a  hurry, 


56 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


and  he  does  not  give  a  cut  and  dried, 
mechanical  revelation  of  himself.  Divine 
truth  could  only  have  been  gradually  re¬ 
vealed  as  the  writers  of  the  Bible  were 
morally  qualified  to  receive  it.  And  the 
reception  and  understanding  of  the  truth 
is  ever  conditioned  on  faith,  humility, 
reverence,  sincerity  of  heart,  and  obedi¬ 
ence  to  the  light  already  seen.  This  prin¬ 
ciple  of  comprehending  the  truth,  which 
operates  unceasingly  and  of  necessity, 
was  illuminated  by  our  Lord  when  he  said : 
6 6 If  any  man  will  do  God’s  will  he  shall 
know  of  the  doctrine,  ’  ’ — J ohn  7 : 17— and, 
“No  man  knoweth  who  the  Son  is  but  the 
Father;  and  who  the  Father  is,  but  the 
Son,  and  he  to  whom  the  Son  will  reveal 
Him” — Luke  10:22. — and  was  inter¬ 
preted  by  Paul:  “The  natural  man  re- 
ceiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of 
God:  for  they  are  foolishness  unto  him; 
neither  can  he  understand  them  because 
they  are  spiritually  discerned.” — 1st  Cor. 
2 : 14.  Our  Lord  in  speaking  of  entrance 
into  the  Kingdom,  revealed  this  same 
moral  law:  “Except  a  man  be  born  again 
he  cannot  see  the  Kingdom  of  God” — John 
3 : 3 — much  less  enter  into  the  Kingdom 
and  understand  it. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


57 


The  disciples  had  to  grow  into  the 
spiritual  understanding  of  our  Lord.  It 
was,  in  a  sense,  with  them  as  it  is  with 
us — one  step  at  a  time.  The  new  birth  is 
the  first  essential,  then  Kingdom  truth 
opens  up  before  their  expanding  vision. 
The  Incarnation  can  be  revealed  to  men 
only  by  the  revealer  of  God’s  truth — the 
Holy  Spirit.  The  carnal  mind  doubts  it. 
The  rationalists  are  living  in  another 
kingdom — the  kingdom  of  Nature,  and 
they  cannot  see  or  comprehend  spiritual 
truth. 

Resurrection  and  the  Virgin  Birth 

What  has  been  stated  leads,  naturally, 
to  a  consideration  of  the  relation  of  our 
Lord’s  resurrection  to  the  revelation  of 
his  Incarnation.  It  cannot  be  too  strong¬ 
ly  emphasized  that  the  larger  and  more 
perfect  understanding  of  our  Lord  was 
impossible  to  his  disciples  until  after  his 
resurrection.  Our  Lord  well  knew  that  to 
reveal  to  them  the  fact  of  his  supernat¬ 
ural  conception  prior  to  his  resurrection, 
would  have  been  fruitless.  It  was  the 
resurrection  that  attested  the  truth  of  all 
He  had  said  and  done,  and  that  flooded, 


58 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


so  to  speak,  His  whole  incarnate  life  with 
the  very  light  of  God.  After  He  had  com¬ 
pleted  His  redemptive  work  on  Calvary, 
and  had  conquered  sin  and  death,  His  dis¬ 
ciples  saw  clearly,  as  they  could  not  have 
seen  it  before,  that  Jesus  was  the  Son  of 
God.  On  resurrection  ground  they  could 
see  the  Lord  in  the  light  of  a  divine  per¬ 
spective.  Prior  to  the  resurrection  His 
mortal  flesh  veiled  their  eyes.  Because 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  now  the  presiding  pres¬ 
ence  in  their  lives  they  see  the  real  Christ. 
His  Virgin  Birth,  cross,  resurrection, 
heavenly  mediation,  and  spiritual  pres¬ 
ence  in  every  trustful  heart,  as  well  as 
His  future  personal  manifestation  in 
glory,  constituted  to  them  the  spiritual 
vision  of  Him  who  is  now  their  ascended 
and  glorified  Lord.  That  is  why  it  was 
impossible  to  give  the  written  Word  re¬ 
garding  the  Christ  before  his  victory  over 
the  grave.  The  resurrection  is  the  solu¬ 
tion  of  the  mystery  concerning  our  blessed 
Lord. 

Unity  of  Our  Lord’s  Life  and  Work 

And  this  leads  us  to  remark  that,  in 
this  progressive  revelation  of  Jesus 
Christ,  it  is  clear  that  his  life  cannot  be 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


59 


divided  into  sections.  No  one  event  can  be 
separated  from  all  the  other  events  in 
His  life.  When  men  believe  in  the  Christ 
of  God  they  believe  in  the  Christ  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  as  well  as  the  Christ  who 
died  in  man’s  stead,  and  who  arose  and 
lives  as  Saviour,  Lord  and  coming  King. 
The  life  and  work  of  Christ  are  one — a 
divine  unity — embracing  his  pre-existence, 
assumption  of  our  humanity,  his  vicari¬ 
ous  death,  resurrection  and  everlasting 
triumph  with  his  saints.  Step  by  step, 
one  divine  act  of  love,  one  revelation  after 
another  is  the  way  He  made  Himself 
known.  His  virgin  Birth  was  the  first 
great  credential  of  His  deity  and  love  for 
men;  His  miracles  were  a  cluster  of  the 
same  credentials;  His  death  was  His  su¬ 
preme  act  of  vicarious  sacrifice  for  sin, 
when  He  poured  out  His  blood  for  the 
redemption  of  mankind;  His  resurrection 
was  the  divine  attestation  to  all  he  had 
said  and  done;  and  His  personal  second 
coming  will  be  such  a  manifestation  of 
glory  and  triumph  as  the  universe  has 
never  beheld. 

When  men  say:  “I  believe  in  the  living 
Christ  and  not  in  the  Christ,  Virgin 


60 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


born,”  they  are  talking  sheerest  nonsense. 
When  they  say:  4 ‘Throw  away  yonr  be¬ 
lief  in  the  atonement,  for  it  is  Easter 
morning  in  theology,”  they  simply  reveal 
crass  ignorance  of  the  Christ  of  the  New 
Testament.  It  required  the  Incarnation 
as  well  as  Calvary  and  the  resurrection  to 
present  to  men  a  perfect  revelation  of 
God,  and  the  true  object  of  saving  faith. 
The  religious  liberalist,  with  his  destruc¬ 
tive  scalpel,  cannot  divide  up  in  this 
fashion  our  divine  Lord.  When  Paul 
wrote  that  our  Lord  “was  declared  to  be 
the  Son  of  God  with  power  by  the  resur¬ 
rection  from  the  dead” — Rom.  1:4 — 
he  did  not  intend  to  suggest,  or  that  it 
might  be  implied  that  the  Incarnation 
need  not  be  embraced  in  faith,  for  in  his 
other  teachings  he  made  it  plain  that  the 
self-emptying  was  as  necessary  as  the 
cross  and  the  open  grave.  True  Christian 
faith  says :  Because  of  His  miraculous 
birth  I  believe  that  He  is  God ;  because  of 
His  death  on  the  cross  I  believe  that  He 
is  God;  because  of  His  resurrection  I  be¬ 
lieve  that  He  is  God.  All  are  integral 
parts  of  the  one  glorious  self-manifesta¬ 
tion  of  the  Son  of  God  in  our  humanity. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


61 


And  care  should  be  taken  to  admit  of  no 
qualifications  here. 

There  are  those  who  say:  4 ‘I  do  not  be¬ 
lieve  in  the  deity  of  Christ  because  of  his 
Virgin  Birth ;  I  believe  in  his  Virgin  Birth 
because  I  believe  in  his  deity.”  In  other 
words,  they  are  unwilling  to  affirm  the 
Virgin  Birth  on  the  authority  of  the  Word 
of  God,  but  on  the  basis  of  a  purely  ra¬ 
tionalistic  process  of  reasoning  regard¬ 
ing  Jesus  Christ.  By  this  the  basis  of 
authority  is  shifted  from  God’s  infallible 
truth  to  the  individual.  This  is  Modern¬ 
ism  in  essence.  But  can  we  afford  to  thus 
think  so  slightingly  of  the  testimony  of 
Scripture  as  to  one  event  in  our  Lord’s 
life  and  yet  accept  the  testimony  of  Scrip¬ 
ture  regarding  other  events  in  his  life? 
Such  an  attitude  is  both  illogical  and  in¬ 
consistent.  If  Scripture  is  authority  for 
part  it  is  for  the  whole  of  our  Lord’s  life. 
The  only  proper  and  honest  attitude 
toward  this  doctrine  is  to  affirm  our  faith 
in  the  deity  of  Christ  on  the  authority  of 
’the  Word  of  God.  I  believe  therefore 
that  Jesus  Christ  was  God  because  his 
Virgin  Birth  reveals  it,  and  that  on  the 
authority  of  the  Word  of  God;  and  I  also 


62 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


believe  in  the  Virgin  Birth  because  Jesus 
Christ  was  God. 

It  is  not  a  mere  expression  of  dogma¬ 
tism  to  say  that  they  who  deny  the  Vir¬ 
gin  Birth  are  only  mere  professors  of 
Christ,  and  that  between  all  such  and  the 
true  vision  of  the  Son  of  God  4  ‘  there  is  a 
great  gulf  fixed,’ ’  a  dead  line  of  philoso¬ 
phic  speculation,  as  dark  as  the  darkest 
night,  as  hopeless  as  sin  and  doom — the 
impassible  barrier  which  men  have  raised 
by  their  unbelief.  The  true  vision  of 
Jesus  Christ  comprises  his  whole  self- 
manifestation,  and  begins  with  his  Incar¬ 
nation,  yet  it  is  in  the  light  of  his  resur¬ 
rection  that  we  learn  the  true  significance 
of  all  that  he  was,  and  all  that  He  said, 
and  ail  that  He  had  done  and  that  makes 
clear  the  necessity  of  a  miraculous  human 
origin.  In  all  this  we  find  the  secret  of 
the  silence  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  re¬ 
garding  his  birth  from  a  Virgin.  He 
knew  that  his  victory  over  death  would 
furnish  the  unanswerable  proof  of  the 
sacred  story  as  the  writers  of  the  Gos¬ 
pels  relate  it. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


63 


Virgin  Birth  Must  Be  Assumed 

It  is  necessary  here  to  take  another 
step,  and  note  that  in  all  our  Lord’s 
teachings  concerning  himself  the  fact  of 
his  Incarnation  can  be  seen  in  the  back¬ 
ground  as  that  great  event  from  which 
his  human  personality  sprung.  While  He 
did  not  teach  directly  that  He  was  Virgin 
born,  nevertheless,  our  highest  reason 
compels  us  to  see  underlying  all  His 
teachings,  and,  as  the  only  possible  key 
to  their  interpretation,  the  assumption 
of  a  supernatural  human  origin.  The 
centuries  have  been  baffled  to  account  for 
Jesus  Christ  on  the  basis  of  any  other 
hypothesis,  and  what  faith  accepts  on  the 
authority  of  the  Word  of  God,  reason 
also  demands  as  the  only  possible  ex¬ 
planation  of  him.  Here  faith,  reason, 
Scripture,  and  the  witness  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  Christian  experience,  for  nine¬ 
teen  hundred  years,  agree  as  one.  In 
facing  the  fact  of  Christ  reason  must 
ever  postulate  the  Incarnation,  as  faith 
ever  cries:  “Lord,  I  believe;  help  thou 
mine  unbelief.’ ’ — Mark  9:24. 


64  THE  MODERN  MIND 

What  Our  Lord  Said  of  Himself 

Over  and  over  again  onr  Lord  both 
claimed  and  demonstrated  that  he  was 
more  than  man.  He  could  well  afford  to 
challenge  men  with  the  question,  “What 
think  ye  of  Christ?  Whose  son  is  he?” 
Did  they  reply  that  he  was  the  son  of 
Joseph?  If  not,  why  not?  They  did  say 
that  He  was  “the  son  of  David,”  by 
which  they  intended  to  imply  that  He  was 
not,  as  He  had  claimed  to  be,  the  son  of 
God.  Unbelief  would  honor  Him  to  that 
extent.  But  our  Lord  comes  back  with 
the  rejoinder:  “How  then  does  David  in 
the  spirit  call  him  Lord?  saying,  The 
Lord  said  unto  my  Lord,  sit  thou  on  my 
right  hand  till  I  make  thine  enemies  thy 
footstool.  If  David  then  called  him  Lord 
how  is  he  his  son?  And  no  man  was 
able  to  answer  a  word. 9  ’■ — Matt.  22 :  44-46. 

Take  another  case :  In  reply  to  the  ques¬ 
tion,  “Whom  do  men  say  that  I  the  son 
of  man  am?”,  His  disciples  reported  the 
opinions  that  were  current  regarding  our 
Lord,  and  they  said:  “Some  say  that  thou 
art  John  the  Baptist;  some  Elias,  and 
others  Jeremias,  or  one  of  the  prophets.” 
— Matt.  16 : 13-14.  Is  it  not  significant 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


65 


that  no  one  of  them  affirmed  that  he  was 
the  son  of  Joseph?  This  elimination  of 
Joseph  was  not  because  of  belief  on  the 
part  of  the  Jews  in  the  re-incarnation  of 
souls,  as  some  have  supposed,  in  order  to 
evade  the  fact  of  our  Lord’s  deity.  The 
pagan  doctrine  of  the  re-incarnation  of 
souls  never  was  acceptable  to  the  Jews. 
The  ablest  minds  in  our  Lord’s  day  were 
baffled  to  account  for  him  on  the  basis  of 
any  hypothesis,  natural,  philosophical,  or 
theological,  aside  from  the  assumption  of 
his  deity.  They  well  knew  that  to  argue 
in  behalf  of  Joseph  as  an  explanation  of 
Christ’s  unique  and  marvelous  person¬ 
ality  and  supernatural  power  was  utterly 
ridiculous.  Here  then  was  the  one  great 
problem— how  to  account  for  Jesus 
Christ.  They  could  account  for  the  his¬ 
toric  characters  in  their  nation,  as  Abra¬ 
ham,  Moses  and  David,  but  here  is  One 
that  baffled  all  analysis.  Men  have  ever 
been  unable  to  define,  analyze  or  explain 
Deity,  and  when  they  saw  God  in  the 
human  form  of  Jesus  Christ  their  confu¬ 
sion  and  utter  perplexity  was  quite  nat¬ 
ural.  Were  Jesus  Christ  to  appear  in 
human  form  today,  the  greatest  minds 


66 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


would  be  bewildered  to  account  for  him. 
It  was  the  greatness,  the  superiority  of 
Jesus  Christ  that,  on  several  occasion 
seemed  to  arouse  the  animosity  of  his 
countrymen,  especially  when  he  affirms  his 
divine  origin — that  he  was  greater  than 
Abraham,  that  “before  Abraham  was,  I 
am.”  Their  only  reply  took  on  the  form 
of  Billingsgate  and  physical  persecution, 
and  they  shouted  “liar!”  “devil!”  and 
“took  up  stones  to  stone  Him.” — John 
8 : 56-58.  Calling  ugly  names  and  resort¬ 
ing  to  stones  constituted  a  lame  argu¬ 
ment  against  the  deity  of  our  Lord,  yet  it 
has  always  been  typical  of  those  who 
shut  their  minds  to  the  truth.  We  see  it 
today  in  Turkey,  and  in  Russia,  and  even 
in  America,  though  here  in  our  country 
it  takes  on  the  form  of  ridicule  and  boy¬ 
cott  of  the  greatest  prophets  of  God  in 
the  twentieth  century — the  ‘  4  Fundamen¬ 
talists” — by  an  ecclesiastical  black  hand 
movement  to  bar  from  the  pulpits  all 
those  who  are  loyally  standing  for  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  his  truth. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


67 


The  Supreme  Question 

To  the  men  of  our  Lord’s  time  the 
great  question  was  not  whether  he  was 
born  of  a  Virgin,  but  was  he,  as  he 
claimed  to  be,  “the  Son  of  God!”  If  they 
gave  assent  to  the  latter,  belief  in  a 
miraculous  birth  would  logically  follow. 
Here  was  and  is  the  crux  of  the  whole 
matter.  The  battle  raged  around  Him 
because  of  His  claim  to  Deity.  It  was  for 
making  this  claim,  and  that  He  would  re¬ 
turn  to  earth  in  visible  form,  that  He  was 
tried  before  Pilate  and  condemned  to 
die. — Matt.  26 :  63-68.  And  an  unbeliev¬ 
ing  world  is  still  rejecting  His  claim.  This 
age-long  unbelief  is  manifesting  itself  to¬ 
day  in  much  of  our  education,  secular  and 
religious.  While  outwardly  the  attack  is 
being  made  on  the  Virgin  Birth,  the  un¬ 
derlying  motive  is  to  destroy  the  faith  of 
men  in  the  supernatural  Christ. 

Claim  For  A  Divine  Sonship 

Our  Lord  claimed  for  himself  a  unique 
Sonship,  that  he  was  the  eternal  Son  of 
God,  in  contradistinction  to  the  modern 
doctrine  that  all  men  are  the  sons  of  God. 


68 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


This  is  the  truth  that  the  religious  liber- 
alists  are  rejecting  today,  and  their  con¬ 
tention  constitutes  a  denial  of  the  very 
heart  of  the  Christian  Revelation. 

It  is  well  that  we  take  a  rapid  survey 
of  this  claim  made  by  our  Lord,  as  it  is 
presented  in  the  Gospels.  We  find  that 
His  divine  Sonship  was  witnessed  to  by 
God,  by  Himself,  angels,  men  and  demons. 
The  Angel  announced  it  to  Mary — Luke 
1 : 32-35 ;  the  Father  bore  witness  to  it  at 
His  baptism  and  transfiguration. — Matt. 
3:17;  17:5;  the  demons  in  men  gave 
their  testimony  to  it— Matt.  8:29;  Peter 
confessed  it — Matt.  16 : 16-18 ;  the  unbe¬ 
lieving  Jews  admitted  that  our  Lord  made 
such  a  claim— John  10:33;  John  the  Bap¬ 
tist  testified  to  it — J ohn  1 : 18 ;  3:31;  and 
our  Lord  affirmed  it  over  and  over  again 
—Mark  14:61-62;  John  3:13-16;  8:23, 
35,  36,  42  and  9 :  35.  Here  is  a  great  ar¬ 
ray  of  witnesses.  Let  us  examine  a  few 
of  these  and  learn  afresh  the  stupendous 
nature  of  this  claim  and  see  what  it  in¬ 
volves  : 

Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  submitted  the 
question  to  his  disciples:  44  Whom  do  men 
say  that  I  the  Son  of  man  am? 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


69 


“And  they  said,  Some  say  that  thou 
art  John  the  Baptist:  some  Elias;  and 
others,  Jeremias,  or  one  of  the  Prophets. 

“He  said  unto  them:  But  whom  say  ye 
that  I  am? 

“And  Simon  Peter  answered  and  said, 
Thou  are  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  liv¬ 
ing  God.” 

In  response  to  Peter  our  Lord  men¬ 
tions  for  the  first  time  his  Church.  He 
says : 

“Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar-jona:  for 
flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto 
thee,  but  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

“And  I  say  unto  thee,  That  thou  art 
Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my 
Church;  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail  against  it.  ’  ’ — Mat.  16 : 13-18. 

Here  then  we  have  a  remarkable  pro¬ 
phecy  and  promise  regarding  the  Church. 
The  Church  is  built  on  a  confession  of 
the  deity  of  our  Lord.  2.  The  Church  is 
a.  Divine  Institution  possessing  super¬ 
natural  life  and  power.  3.  The  Church 
was  created  an  aggressive,  militant  force 
that  can  never  call  retreat,  and  to  fulfil 
her  mission,  must  attack  evil  in  all  its 
forms  and  pull  down  the  gates  of  hell 


70 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


from  their  hinges.  “The  gates  of  hell 
shall  not  prevail  against  it,”  but  must  ul¬ 
timately  fall  before  the  moral  onslaughts 
of  Christ  and  his  Church.  Truth  must 
ultimately  win!  4.  From  this  it  is  clear 
that  the  objective  of  conquest  for  this  vic¬ 
torious  Church  is  the  whole  world.  But 
this  prophecy  has  been  fulfilled  only  in 
part,  nevertheless,  e’er  long  the  last  great 
battle  will  have  been  fought  between 
Christ  and  his  Church  on  one  hand  and 
the  anti-Christ  and  his  world  power  on 
the  other  hand,  and  then  this  glorious 
prophecy  will  be  fulfilled,  and  the  King¬ 
dom  of  God  rule  the  world.  But  what  is 
the  great  incentive,  the  dynamic,  the  bat¬ 
tle-cry  of  the  Church  for  all  time?  Is  it 
not  this:  “Thou  are  the  Christ  the  Son 
of  the  living  God?”  This  is  the  faith  that 
conquers  the  powers  of  hell  and  brings 
in  the  everlasting  victory.  “Thou  art  the 
Christ” ;~~Thou  art  Deity;  Thou  art  God. 

It  is  significant  that  in  the  first  and  last 
recorded  utterances  of  our  Lord  he  re¬ 
veals  both  his  Sonship  and  supernatural 
power. 

When  in  the  temple  at  the  age  of 
twelve  His  mother  affectionately  chided 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


71 


him,  saying:  “Thy  father  and  I  have 
sought  thee  sorrowing”;  but  our  Lord  in¬ 
stantly  replied:  “Wist  ye  not  that  I  must 
be  about  my  Father’s  business?” — Luke 
2:48-49.  “My  Father’s  business”  in  con¬ 
tradistinction  to  Joseph  as  His  father. 
Of  course  Joseph  was  His  legal  father 
and  it  was  in  this  sense  in  which  His 
noble  mother  employed  the  term.  But 
note  how  quickly  our  Lord  took  occasion 
to  forestall  any  misleading  conclusion 
that  might  result  from  her  words.  He 
virtually  said:  “My  Father  is  not  a  car¬ 
penter,  and  my  business  is  not  the  car¬ 
penter’s  craft.  My  Father  is  God,  and 
I  must  be  about  my  Father’s  business.” 

And  note  His  final  words: 

“All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven 
and  in  earth. 

“Go  ye  therefore  and  teach  all  nations, 
baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father 
and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

“Teaching  them  to  observe  all  things 
whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you:  and, 
lo,  I  iam  withs  you  alway,  even  unto  the 
end  of  the  world.” — Matt.  28:18-20. 

All  power  in  the  earth;  all  power  in 


72 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


the  universe;  all  power  in  all  worlds. 
Here  is  Omnipotence — here  is  God. 

The  Jews  admitted  that  on  one  occa¬ 
sion  they  had  sought  to  kill  our  Lord  be¬ 
cause  he  claimed  4  Ghat  God  was  his 
Father,  thus  making  himself  equal  with 
God.” — John  5:17-18.  Our  Lord  does 
not  retract  one  word  that  he  had  spoken 
to  them,  but  rather  enlarged  upon  it  say¬ 
ing,  4  4  The  Son  can  do  nothing  of  him¬ 
self,  but  what  he  seeth  the  Father  do: 
for  what  things  soever  the  Father  doeth, 
these  also  doeth  the  Son The  Son  can 
do  what  the  Father  doeth.  Here  also  is 
Omnipotence — here  is  God.  Then,  in 
what  follows,  he  reveals  to  them  his  work 
as  the  Son  of  God. 

The  Father  shows  Him  all  that  the 
Father  doeth,  i.e.,  He  has  the 
Knowledge  of  God. 

The  Son  like  the  Father  hath  power 
to  quicken  the  dead. 

To  the  Son  all  judgment  hath  been 
committed. 

The  Son  should  be  honored  as  the 
Father  is  honored. 

The  Son  imparts  everlasting  life. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


73 


The  Son  like  the  Father  hath  life  in 
Himself. 

The  hour  cometh  when  the  Son  shall 
call  all  men  out  of  their  graves. 

My  works  witness  to  all  this. 

The  Father  witnesses  to  all  this. 

The  Scriptures  witness  to  this. 

— John  5:20-39. 

What  then  is  the  conclusion  that  must 
be  drawn  from  all  these  teachings  of  our 
Lord  and  from  the  remarkable  testi¬ 
monies  given  regarding  him?  Is  it  not 
that  He  was  a  supernatural  Being  and 
had  a  miraculous  human  origin? — that  He 
was,  as  Matthew  and  Luke  record,  con¬ 
ceived  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  born  of  a  Vir¬ 
gin,  very  God  of  very  God?  We  can  well 
afford  to  challenge  reasonable,  fair- 
minded  men  to  arrive  at  any  other  sane 
interpretation  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ,  from  the  records  as  given 
of  him  in  the  Gospels. 


74 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


CHAPTER  V 
OBJECTION 

If  Jesus  Christ  had  been  Virgin 
born,  John  and  Paul  who  wrote  most 
of  the  New  Testament  would  not  have 
been  silent  regarding  it. 

We  come  again  to  the  argument  from 
silence,  if  it  can  be  so  honored,  for  silence 
cannot  affirm  or  deny.  Matthew  and  Luke 
are  two  good  witnesses,  and  any  court 
would  decide  a  case  on  the  testimony  of 
two  reliable  witnesses.  Does  it  not  ap¬ 
pear  irrational  to  argue  against  Matthew 
and  Luke  from  the  alleged  silence  of  John 
and  Paul! 

But  what  does  John  say! 

“In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and 
the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word 
was  God.  ’  ’ — J ohn  1 : 1. 

“He  was  in  the  world,  and  the  world 
was  made  by  him,  and  the  world  knew 
him  not.” — John  1:10. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


75 


“And  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and 
dwelt  among  ns,  and  we  beheld  his  glory, 
the  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the 
Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth.” — John 
1:14. 

These  passages  are  sufficient  to  reveal 
the  attitude  of  John  to  the  Virgin  Birth. 
It  is  true  he  did  not  refer  directly  to  that 
great  event  for  he  followed  the  example 
of  our  Lord,  hence  he  assumed  it  in  his 
writings. 

A  deadly  heresy  had  arisen  in  John’s 
day — a  “denial  that  Jesus  Christ  had 
come  in  the  flesh,”  and  John  wrote  his 
Gospel  to  refute  that  heresy. 

Look  at  his  opening  passage :  He  did 
not  begin  with  the  Incarnation,  nor  with 
our  Lord’s  human  descent,  but  with  one 
stroke  of  his  pen  J ohn  begins  to  trace  the 
divine  descent  of  our  Lord  back  beyond 
Adam,  back  before  the  morning  stars  sang 
together,  before  worlds  were  made  and 
systems  framed,  back  into  eternity,  and 
says:  “In  the  beginning  was  the  Word” 
— the  Logos,  the  active  Agent  of  Almighty 
God. 

In  his  first  verse  John  predicated  three 
facts  regarding  our  Lord: 


76 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


1.  His  eternity — “In  tlie  beginning  was 
the  Word.” 

2.  His  unity  with  God — “And  the 
Word  was  with  God.” 

3.  His  Deity — “And  the  Word  was 
God.” 

Then  he  proceeds  to  show  throughout 
his  Gospel  the  glory,  authority  and  power 
of  the  eternal  Son  of  God.  The  whole 
book  assumes  a  miraculous  birth. 

We  will  let  Dr.  James  Orr  state  the 
position  of  John  as  to  the  Incarnation. 
His  statement  comprises  a  list  of  facts 
that  cannot  be  refuted. 

“Do  not  John’s  words  assume  an  ex¬ 
ceptional  mode  of  birth?  Are  they  not 
presumptive  evidence  of  what  the  other 
Gospel  writers  so  plainly  reveal?  It  would 
be  as  reasonable  to  argue  that  John’s 
words  meant  to  deny  that  Jesus  was  ever 
born  at  all  as  that  he  meant  to  deny  that 
his  birth  was  such  as  Luke  and  Matthew 
describe  ....  John  had  the  Gospels  of 
Matthew  and  Luke  in  his  hand  when  he 
wrote  his  Gospel,  at  a  time  when  the  Vir¬ 
gin  Birth  was  already  a  general  article  of 
belief  in  the  Church.  Doubtless  J ohn 
knew  of  the  Virgin  Birth.  Does  he  re- 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  77 

pudiate  it?  [No.]  Does  he  contradict  it? 
[No.]  Does  he  correct  it?  [No.]  Then 
we  have  a  right  to  believe  that  he  ac¬ 
cepted  it.  Such  a  story,  if  untrue,  would 
have  been  a  slur  on  Mary’s  good  name, 
and  John,  who  was  commissioned  by  Jesus 
to  care  for  his  mother,  would  have  re¬ 
sented  the  slander.” — “The  Virgin  Birth 
of  Christ.” — page  107. 

Alleged  Silence  of  Paul 

There  are  those  who  say  that  Paul  also 
knew  nothing  of  the  Virgin  Birth,  for, 
they  affirm,  that  if  the  great  Apostle  had 
heard  the  story  and  believed  it  he  would 
not  have  remained  silent  regarding  it 
when  he  wrote  his  epistles. 

But  what  was  true  of  John  was  like¬ 
wise  true  of  Paul.  It  was  not  Paul’s 
purpose  to  discuss  the  first  advent  in  a 
literal  fashion,  for  he  was  well  aware  that 
this  had  been  done  by  Matthew  and  Luke, 
and  that  the  Christian  people  all  knew 
about  the  Virgin  Birth  in  his  day. 

Paul’s  purpose  in  writing  was  a  varied 
one,  but  particularly  to  make  clear  the 
fact  of  the  atonement,  resurrection  and 
second  advent;  consequently  he  passes 


78 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


over  all  tlie  incidents  in  Christ's  life,  for 
he  knew  that  these  had  been  related  by 
other  writers.  It  would  be  as  reasonable 
to  argue  that  Paul  did  not  believe  in  our 
Lord's  miracles  as  to  state  that  he  placed 
no  credence  in  his  Virgin  Birth,  for  he 
was  silent  as  to  both.  Paul’s  great  com¬ 
pelling  themes  were  those  just  enumer¬ 
ated,  and  so  his  defense  of  the  Gospel 
centers  in  them,  particularly  in  the  resur¬ 
rection.  He  knew  well  that  the  greatest 
support  of  the  Virgin  Birth  was  found  in 
the  resurrection,  therefore  he  built  his 
argument  on  the  matchless  character,  me¬ 
diation,  risen  life,  intercession,  and  spir¬ 
itual  presence  and  power  of  Christ,  as 
seen  in  his  ever-expanding  and  conquer¬ 
ing  Church.  All  these  facts,  in  the  think¬ 
ing  of  Paul,  presupposed  the  Incarna¬ 
tion.  To  him  the  resurrection  was  the 
keystone  in  the  Christian  arch,  and  the 
Incarnation,  vicarious  sacrifice  and  char¬ 
acter  of  Christ  were  all  attested  by  his 
triumph  over  death.  These  then  are  the 
proofs  of  the  Incarnation  which  Paul  pre¬ 
sented  and  has  his  argument  ever  been 
successfully  refuted? 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


79 


Paul  Assumed  the  Virgin  Birth 

It  should  be  emphasized,  however,  that 
Paul  in  his  writings  did  assume  the  fact 
of  the  Virgin  Birth.  Let  him  speak  for 
himself : 

“Who  being  in  the  form  of  God, 
thought  it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with 
God:  But  made  himself  of  no  reputation 
and  took  upon  him  the  form  of  a  servant, 
and  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  men.” — 
Phil.  2 :  7. 

“For  what  the  law  could  not  do  in  that 
it  was  weak  through  the  flesh,  God  send¬ 
ing  his  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful 
flesh,  and  for  sin  condemned  sin  in  the 
flesh.  ’  ’ — Rom.  8 :  3. 

“But  when  the  fulness  of  time  was 
come,  God  sent  forth  his  Son,  made  of  a 
woman,  made  under  the  law,  to  redeem 
them  that  were  under  the  law,  that  we 
might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons.” — 
Gal.  4 : 4-5. 

In  these  remarkable  passages  Paul 
makes  clear  the  purpose  for  which  “God 
sent  forth  his  Son,” — 1,  to  redeem  men 
from  sin;  2,  that  we  might  become  by 
faith  adopted  sons.  Note  the  facts  as 
Paul  states  them: 


80 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


“was  made  in  the  likeness  of  men.” 

“God  sending  his  Son  in  the  likeness 
of  sinful  flesh,  and  for  sin  con¬ 
demned  sin  in  the  flesh.” 

“God  sent  forth  his  Son,  made  of  a 
woman,  made  under  the  law.” 

“To  redeem  them  that  were  under  the 
law,  that  we  might  receive  the 
adoption  of  sons.” 

The  thought  running  through  these  won¬ 
derful  passages  is,  that  “our  Lord  volun¬ 
tarily  enters  our  nature,  yet  there  is  a 
clear  distinction  between  his  deity  and 
humanity  here  suggested.  He  is  one  of  us 
yet  not  of  us.” 

Paul’s  thought  could  be  put  in  Luke’s 
phrase,  “that  holy  one  that  shall  he 
born,”  because  God  is  in  His  origin. 

I  am  sure  that  from  these  passages  it 
cannot  be  said  that  “Paul  did  not  even 
distantly  allude  to  the  Virgin  Birth”  of 
the  Son  of  God,  as  Dr.  Harry  Emerson 
Fosdick  has  asserted  in  a  recent  sermon 
—“Shall  the  Fundamentalists  Win,”  and 
that  he  and  others,  who  seem  to  deny  the 
Virgin  Birth,  cannot  fairly  use  what  he 
terms  “the  silence  of  John  and  Paul”  in 
order  to  disprove  that  great  miracle. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


81 


For  a  fitting  conclusion  to  this  part  of 
onr  discussion  a  quotation  will  be  given 
from  Dr.  Sutton’s  pamphlet. 

“  There  are  many  places  where  the 
writer  of  the  Book  of  Esther  might  have 
mentioned  the  name  of  God,  yet  he  does 
not  mention  it  once,  but  no  one  concludes 
that  he  therefore  knew  nothing  of  God’s 
existence,  nor  that  he  regarded  His  ex¬ 
istence  as  of  slight  importance.  The 
argument  from  silence  is  a  dangerous 
weapon.  Mark  you,  what  we  are  asked 
to  do  is  to  give  up  belief  in  the  Virgin 
Birth,  not  because  any  New  Testament 
writer  denies  it  but  because  certain  New 
Testament  writers  do  not  affirm  it  clearly, 
though  two  New  Testament  writers  do 
affirm  it  in  the  clearest  possible  way.” 


82 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


CHAPTER  VI 

OBJECTION 

The  disciples  of  Jesus  held  two  tra¬ 
ditions  regarding  him — one  that  he 
was  the  Son  of  God,  the  other  that  he 
was  the  Son  of  Joseph;  and  since  his 
disciples  differed  as  to  this  matter 
why  should  men  concern  themselves 
over  it. 

This  objection  was  received  by  the 
writer  from  a  learned  New  England  critic. 

The  passages  which  are  alleged  to  fur¬ 
nish  a  basis  for  this  argument  against 
the  Virgin  Birth  will  be  examined.  This 
is  an  important  matter  and  should  receive 
most  careful  attention,  for,  doubtless,  if 
these  passages  should  be  misunderstood, 
as  evidently  is  the  case  with  the  objector 
referred  to  above,  the  fact  of  the  Virgin 
Birth  would  be  weakened  in  the  thought 
of  some.  If,  however,  these  passages 
should  seem  to  sustain  the  above  objec- 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


83 


lion,  the  weight  of  evidence  would  still  re¬ 
main  on  the  side  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Virgin  Birth. 

But  let  us  examine  closely  this  alleged 
tradition  in  the  light  of  the  Scriptures 
which  are  claimed  as  its  chief  support. 
These  passages  are  as  follows : 

“Is  not  this  the  carpenter’s  son?” — 
Matt.  13 : 55. 

“And  Jesus  himself  began  to  be 
about  thirty  years  of  age,  being, 
(as  was  supposed),  the  son  of  Jo¬ 
seph.  ’  ’ — Luke  3 :  23. 

“We  have  found  him  of  whom  Moses 
in  the  law  and  the  prophets  did 
write,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  son  of 
Joseph.” — John  1:45. 

“And  they  said:  Is  not  this  Jesus, 
the  son  of  Joseph,  whose  father 
and  mother  we  know.” — John  6:  42. 

In  Matt.  13 : 55,  we  simply  have  a 
quotation,  giving  the  words  spoken  by  the 
Jews,  who,  when  they  saw  the  wonderful 
works  of  our  Lord  were  unable  to  account 
for  him  on  natural  grounds;  therefore 
they  said:  “Is  not  this  the  carpenter’s 
son?”  It  is  evident  that  there  is  nothing 


84 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


here  to  show  that  the  disciples  held  to 
any  such  tradition. 

The  reference  in  Luke  3 : 23  has  been 
explained  in  chapter  III.  It  was  seen 
that  Joseph’s  name  was  used  as  the  legal 
head  of  his  household. 

Regarding  John  1:45,  “We  have  found 
him  of  whom  Moses  in  the  law  and  the 
prophets  did  write,  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
the  son  of  Joseph,”  it  should  be  observed 
that  these  words  are  a  quotation  from 
Philip,  who  had  just  decided  to  become  a 
disciple  of  our  Lord,  and  who  up  to  this 
time  had  not  heard  of  the  Incarnation, 
hence  they  cannot  lend  support  to  the 
claim  that  there  was  held  by  our  Lord’s 
disciples  a  tradition  that  he  was  the  son 
of  Joseph.  Possibly  Philip’s  ignorance  of 
the  Virgin  Birth  may  be  accounted  for 
from  the  fact  that  he  was  a  Galilean. 
Nowhere  do  wTe  learn  that  our  Lord  de¬ 
manded  faith  in  his  Virgin  Birth  as  a 
condition  of  discipleship,  but  he  did  make 
acceptance  of  him  as  the  Son  of  God  and 
Messiah  from  heaven  a  condition  of  dis¬ 
cipleship,  and  in  so  doing  the  Virgin 
Birth  is  naturally  assumed,  though,  as 
has  been  shown  heretofore,  for  good  and 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


85 


delicate  reasons  it  could  not  be  discussed 
openly  by  our  Lord. 

Indeed  it  is  evident  that  Philip  so 
viewed  our  Lord  as  the  true  Messiah  from 
heaven,  for  this  is  what  his  words  would 
most  naturally  convey — “We  have  found 
him  of  whom  Moses  in  the  law  and  the 
prophets  did  wuite.”  Of  whom  did  the 
ancient  prophets  write  but  of  the  prom¬ 
ised  Messiah  from  heaven? 

It  is  significant  that  Nathanael,  wTho 
next  enlisted  as  a  disciple,  was,  as  our 
Lord  said  by  way  of  commendation,  “an 
Israelite  indeed  in  whom  is  no  guile/ ’  and 
who,  immediately,  recognizing  the  deity  of 
our  Lord,  declared:  “thou  art  the  Son  of 
God,”  thus  indicating  that  the  true  vision 
of  our  Lord’s  deity  was  possible  to 
Nathanael  because  of  the  purity  of  his 
character.  “The  pure  in  heart  shall  see 
God.”  Nathanael  was  a  great  crystal- 
clear  soul.  May  it  not  also  be  possible 
that  in  our  Lord’s  words  to  Nathanael  we 
find  a  rebuke  of  Philip’s  misguided  idea 
which  expressed  the  common  notion 
among  the  unbelieving  Jews  that  our  Lord 
was  the  son  of  Joseph?  At  any  rate,  there 
is  nothing  here  in  this  case  to  prove  the 


i 


86 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


claim  that  there  existed  among  the  disci¬ 
ples  a  tradition  that  our  Lord  was  the  son 
of  Joseph. 

In  the  next  case,  J ohn  6 : 42,  we  have 
only  a  quotation.  “And  they  said:  Is 
not  this  Jesus  the  son  of  Joseph,  whose 
father  and  mother  we  know?”  These 
words  were  spoken  by  the  Jews,  who 
were  not  disciples,  and  were  occasioned  by 
our  Lord’s  remarkable  discourse  on 
“the  bread  which  came  down  from  heav¬ 
en,”  and  that  those  who  partake  of  that 
bread  would  be  raised  up  at  the  last  day. 
It  was  at  this  that  the  unbelieving  Jews 
murmured,  “because,  as  he  said,  I  am  the 
bread  which  came  down  from  heaven,  and 
they  said,  Is  not  this  the  son  of  Joseph?” 
Our  Lord’s  reply  furnishes  us  with  a  re¬ 
markable  commentary,  to-wit:  that  un¬ 
belief  can  never  accept  the  fact  of  the  In¬ 
carnation,  for  this  truth  is  morally  ex¬ 
clusive  from  all,  except  those  who  are  the 
children  of  faith. 

Surely  then,  judging  from  these  pas¬ 
sages,  there  is  no  ground  for  the  view 
that  there  existed  a  tradition  among  the 
disciples  that  our  Lord  was  the  natural 
son  of  Joseph. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


87 


There  was  one  condition  of  discipleship 
— acceptance  of  the  Lord  Jesns  as  Mes¬ 
siah  and  Son  of  God.  So  far  as  the 
records  show,  this  condition  had  generally 
been  complied  with,  especially  so  after 
the  resurrection.  Even  the  thief  on  the 
cross  revealed  by  his  prayer  that  he  had 
seen  in  the  dying  Saviour  proof  of  his 
deity,  for  he  cried:  “Lord,  remember 
me  when  thou  comest  into  thy  Kingdom.’ ’ 
Luke  23 : 42. 


88 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


CHAPTER  VH 

OBJECTION 

The  story  of  the  Virgin  Birth  was 
suggested  to  Christ’s  disciples  by  the 
old  pagan  myths  of  the  gods  becoming 
incarnate  in  men,  and  is  simply  a 
poetic  description  of  the  greatness  of 
Jesus. 

This  is  the  latest  invention,  and  prob- 
ably  the  most  subtle  and  treacherous  ad¬ 
vanced  against  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ, 
the  one  most  calculated  to  deceive  unin¬ 
formed  people,  and  of  which  much  has 
been  made  by  the  rationalists  in  recent 
years.  This  theory  therefore  calls  for 
examination. 

Its  proponents  have  endeavored  to  con¬ 
vince  the  Christian  world  that  the  power¬ 
ful  impression  made  by  our  Lord  upon  his 
disciples  led  them  to  worship  him  and  ac¬ 
cept  him  as  the  Messiah  from  heaven,  and 
so  they  argue  that  the  pagan  myths  fur- 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


89 


nished  them  with  an  illustration  of  our 
Master’s  greatness  and  mode  of  coming 
into  this  world.  In  other  words,  Matthew 
and  Luke  had  no  intention  of  writing  up 
their  story  as  fact;  their  object  was  to 
give  a  poetic  description  of  the  greatness 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

One  well-known  critic  of  the  Virgin 
Birth  of  Christ,  Dr.  Harry  Emerson  Fos- 
dick,  in  speaking  of  this,  says:  “Pytha¬ 
goras,  Plato,  Augustus  Caesar,  and  others 
were  called  virgin  born.” 

But  what  are  the  facts?  The  pagans 
believed  that  the  gods  could  come  to  earth 
and  become  incarnate  in  men.  Their  con¬ 
ception  as  to  this  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
base  and  revolting  thing  we  find  in  litera¬ 
ture,  ancient  or  modern.  A  pagan  god 
comes  to  a  pure  family  and  takes  the 
wife,  or  daughter,  the  one  which  best  suits 
his  depravity,  and  the  offspring  is  a, 
super-man,  a  god-man,  a  hero. 

So  debasing  are  these  revolting  myths 
that  in  one  case  we  find  that  a  god,  Zeus 
by  name,  tells  how  he  had  improper  re¬ 
lations  with  a  maiden  by  transforming 
himself  into  a  serpent.  Soltau  tells  that 


90 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


Alexander  testified  that  he  “was  begotten 
of  a  serpent  that  was  not  the  bodily 
son  of  Philip.”  He  states  that  the  Em¬ 
peror  Augustus  “was  careful  that  the 
fable  should  be  widely  diffused  to  the 
effect  that  his  mother  was  once  while 
asleep  in  the  Temple  of  Apollo  visited  by 
the  god  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  and  that 
in  the  tenth  month  afterward  he  himself 
was  born.  The  Emperor  did  everything 
in  his  power  to  spread  the  belief  that  the 
god  Apollo  was  his  father/’ 

In  these  ridiculous  stories  there  is  no 
suggestion  that  Alexander’s  mother  or 
Augustus’  mother  was  a  virgin.  No  pagan 
writer  claimed  virgin  birth  for  any  one 
of  their  heroes.  They  did  claim  that 
their  heroes  —  Alexander,  Caesar  and 
others — were  sons  of  the  gods. 

These  are  the  facts  regarding  these 
pagan  myths  which  the  modern  rational¬ 
ists  affirm  served  as  a  foundation  for  the 
chaste  and  beautiful  story  of  the  Virgin 
Birth  of  our  divine  Lord. 

Of  course,  such  stories  are  the  merest 
buffoonery,  and  the  wisest  people  in  the 
pagan  nations  did  not  believe  them.  Who, 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


91 


except  a  politician,  who  sought  to  win 
the  adoration  of  the  people,  would  say 
that  his  father  was  a  god  in  the  shape  of 
a  serpent  or  beast  or  bird  or  lover?  But 
such  myth  stories,  as  told  by  the  ancients, 
are  less  absurd  than  the  present-day 
claim  of  the  rationalists,  that  we  are  all 
the  offspring  of  monkeys,  apes,  lizards, 
fish  and  tadpoles. 

Tertullian ’s  Testimony 

Tertullian,  a  minister  in  the  early 
Church,  who  was  familiar  with  these 
myths,  says: 

4 ‘God’s  own  Son  was  born — but  not  so 
born  as  to  make  him  ashamed  of  the  name 
of  Son,  or  of  His  paternal  origin.  It  was 
not  His  lot  to  have  as  His  father,  by  in¬ 
cest  with  a  sister  or  by  violation  of  a 
daughter,  or  another’s  wife,  a  god  in  the 
shape  of  a  serpent  .  .  .  for  his  vile  end, 
transforming  himself  into  the  gold  of 
Danaus.  These  are  your  divinities  upon 
whom  these  base  deeds  of  Jupiter  were 
done.” — The  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ,  page 
169. 

Tertullian  was  showing  these  pagans 


92 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


that  their  myths  were  only  subjects  of 
public  ridicule,  and  that  there  was  no 
basis  of  comparison  between  their  revolt¬ 
ing  fables  and  the  Gospel  records  of  the 
Virgin  Birth  of  Christ.  Nevertheless,  our 
modern  Bolshevists:  in  religion,  who  are 
making  war  on  the  supernatural  in  the 
Bible,  and  who  have  the  audacity  to  air 
their  absurd  nonsense,  even  in  Christian 
pulpits,  dare  to  suggest  that  the  chaste 
story  of  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ  is  only 
a  poetic  sequel  to  these  foul  tales. 

False  Claims  Refuted 

But  our  opponents  reply: 

“Buddha  and  Zoroaster  and  others 
were  claimed  by  their  followers  to  have 
been  virgin  born,  and  nearly  every  great 
religious  leader  is  believed  by  his  dis¬ 
ciples  to  have  had  a  supernatural  birth.’ ’ 

It  is  true  that  adherents  of  these  pagan 
religions  do  claim  virgin  birth  or  a  super¬ 
natural  origin  for  their  leaders,  but  it  is 
not  true,  however,  that  these  claims  were 
made  by  those  who  knew,  personally, 
Buddha,  Zoroaster  and  others.  No  ancient 
Buddhist,  for  example,  made  any  such 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


93 


claim  for  him.  Dr.  Orr,  whom  we  have 
quoted,  and  than  whom  the  modern  world 
lias  produced  no  greater  authority,  says : 
4 ‘No  pagan  writer  of  note  for  at  least  two 
hundred  or  three  hundred  years  after 
Buddha’s  time,  claimed  that  he  was  virgin 
born.” — Virgin  Birth  of  Christ,  pages 
171-172. 

As  we  have  shown  heretofore,  the  New 
Testament  was  all  written  in  the  first  cen¬ 
tury,  and  the  story  of  the  Virgin  Birth 
of  Christ  was  not  something  manufactured 
centuries  after  he  was  born,  but  was  cur¬ 
rent  and  believed  in  his  day  by  those  who 
heard  him  and  saw  his  wonderful  works 
and  attested  by  their  blood  the  fact  of  his 
resurrection. 

That  the  reader  may  feel  assured  that 
we  have  not  misrepresented  the  fact  as 
to  Buddha — and  what  is  true  of  Buddha 
is  equally  true  of  the  founders  of  other 
pagan  religions — we  shall  submit  some 
further  corroborative  testimony. 

In  “The  Message  of  Buddha,”  by  Sub- 
harda  Bhikkhu,  and  edited  by  I.  E.  Ellam 
who  is  the  general  secretary  of  the  Bud¬ 
dhist  Society  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire¬ 
land,  this  writer  makes  no  claim  for 


94 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


Buddha  as  having  been  virgin  born.  If 
there  had  been  any  such  tradition  in  any 
of  the  ancient  writing  concerning  Buddha, 
doubtless  this  author  would  not  have 
failed  to  refer  to  it. 

Max  Muller,  who  is  recognized  as  a 
great  authority  on  oriental  religions,  is 
silent  regarding  any  such  claim  as  having 
been  made  by  ancient  Buddhists. 

Maurice  Maeterlinck,  the  Belgian 
writer,  in  his  book  entitled:  “The  Great 
Secret/ ’  in  which  he  treats  of  oriental 
religions,  lays  no  claim  to  Buddha  as  hav¬ 
ing  been  believed  by  ancient  Buddhists 
to  have  been  virgin  born. 

Dr.  Robert  E.  Speer  of  New  York  says: 
“The  stories  of  the  life  of  Buddha  in  the 
Buddhist  Scriptures  which  resemble  at 
all  the  stories  in  the  Gospels,  resemble 
them  in  the  same  way  in  which  medieval 
legends  resemble  them,  and  moreover, 
they  arose  long  after  Buddha’s  death.” — 
The  Light  of  the  World — Page  64. 

Maeterlinck  reminds  his  readers  that 
the  peoples  of  various  countries  “are 
familiar  with  the  old  myth  of  the  child 
born  of  a  virgin  and  that  the  first  Jesuit 
missionary  to  China  discovered  that  the 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


95 


miraculous  birth  of  Christ  had  been  antici¬ 
pated  by  Huf-Ke  who  lived  3468  before 
Jesus’ ’ — page  68. 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  there  is  no  histori¬ 
cal  data  which  can  justify  the  claim  for 
Buddha  and  others  as  having  been  virgin 
born,  but  it  is  entirely  different  with  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  There  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  a  myth  story  which  some 
authorities  say  probably  originated  in 
India,  though  no  one  ventures  to  say 
when  or  where  it  had  its  origin.  It  is 
purely  an  unverified  myth. 

In  the  light  of  all  these  facts,  what 
must  be  our  conclusion?  Is  it  not  fair  to 
say,  that  in  the  custom  of  the  ancients  to 
eulogize  their  leaders,  as  Augustus  Caesar 
and  others,  as  having  been  the  products 
of  the  gods,  we  find  no  basis  for  an  argu¬ 
ment  against  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ? 
Every  student  of  history  knows  that  there 
had  never  been  found  anything  in  the 
lives  of  those  ancient  leaders  to  convince 
any  sane  person  that  they  had  been 
supernaturally  born,  and  the  intelligent 
people  of  those  times  did  not  accept  those 
stories  as  true. 

It  is,  however,  entirely  different  with 


96 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


Christ.  The  story  of  His  birth  is  chaste, 
refined  and  beautiful,  and  is  supported  by 
trustworthy  witnesses— Matthew  and  Luke 
Mary  and  Elisabeth — or  by  what  may  be 
viewed  as  sound  historical  evidence,  and 
conforms  with  the  exalted  spiritual  char¬ 
acter  of  the  Bible  throughout.  Does  not 
the  record  seem  natural  and  altogether 
reasonable  in  the  light  of  the  character 
and  events  in  our  Lord’s  life? 

Christ  and  Prophecy 

Moreover,  another  striking  contrast  of 
the  greatest  significance  is  seen  in  the 
Messianic  predictions  as  found  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  fulfilled  in  the  life  of 
Christ.  Nothing  like  this  can  be  said  of 
Buddha,  or  Mohammed,  or  any  founder  of 
a  pagan  religion.  In  this  fact  of  fulfilled 
prophecy  we  find  one  of  the  strongest 
proofs  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  as 
a  glance  at  history  will  show.  The  Bible 
predicted  the  dispersion  of  the  Jews 
among  all  the  peoples  of  the  world,  the 
extinction  of  their  national  life,  and  also 
the  destruction  of  Assyria,  Babylonia, 
Egypt,  Greece  and  Rome,  as  it  predicts 
the  extinction  of  all  governments  at  the 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


97 


appearance  of  the  great  King  and  the 
establishment  of  God’s  universal  King¬ 
dom  of  righteousness  and  peace.  And 
history  is  simply  the  unfolding  of  God’s 
plan  for  the  ages,  as  that  plan  is  revealed 
in  the  Bible. 

In  this  connection,  it  is  well  to  remind 
ourselves  of  two  or  three  cf  the  most  out¬ 
standing  Messianic  prophecies  which  were 
fulfilled  in  Christ,  and  which  serve  to  il¬ 
lustrate  his  unique  character  and  place  in 
history. 

His  Virgin  Mother 

“Behold  a  virgin  shall  conceive  and 
bring  forth  a  son,  and  shall  call  his  name 
Immanuel.” — Isa.  7 : 14. 

Place  of  His  Birth  Foretold 

‘  ‘  But  thou,  Bethlehem,  Ephratah,  though 
thou  be  little  among  the  thousands  of 
Judah,  yet  out  of  thee  shall  he  come  forth 
unto  me  who  is  to  be  a  ruler  in  Israel; 
whose  goings  forth  hath  been  of  old,  from 
everlasting.  ’  ’ — Micah  5 :  2. 

Sufferings  and  Atonement  for  Sin 

“But  he  was  wounded  for  our  trans¬ 
gressions,  he  was  bruised  for  our  iniqui¬ 
ties,  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was 


98 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


upon  him;  and  with  his  stripes  we  are 
healed.’ ’ — Isa.  53:5-12.  (Read  the  entire 
chapter). 

Universal  Dominion 

“For  unto  us  a  child  is  born,  unto  us  a 
son  is  given,  and  the  government  shall  be 
upon  his  shoulder,  and  his  name  shall  be 
called  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  the  Mighty 
God,  the  Everlasting  Father,  the  Prince 
of  Peace.  Of  the  increase  of  his  govern¬ 
ment  and  peace  there  shall  be  no  end. 
The  zeal  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  will  per¬ 
form  this.” — Isa.  9:6-7. 

Can  anything  like  this  be  said  of  any 
other  founder  of  a  religion?  Surely  there 
is  no  ground  for  comparison.  Jesus 
Christ  stands  out  alone  and  unique  among 
all  the  sons  of  Adam,  and  the  argument 
from  pagan  myths  advanced  to  disprove 
his  miraculous  birth  is  the  sheerest  moon¬ 
shine  ;  it  falls  to  the  ground  as  does  every 
other  theory  which  denies  the  fact  that  he 
was  God. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


99 


Virgin  Birth  and  Other  Religions 

But  we  must  return  for  a  moment  to 
the  objection,  that  other  religions  have  in 
their  sacred  writings  the  story  of  a  virgin 
birth.  Granted  that  this  is  correct,  yet  it 
cannot  in  any  way  invalidate  the  trust¬ 
worthiness  of  the  New  Testament  record 
of  our  Lord’s  birth  from  a  Virgin.  To 
affirm  the  contrary  only  reveals  muddled 
thinking.  Dr.  Sutton  in  his  admirable 
pamphlet  already  referred  to,  says: 

“  Widespread  belief  in  a  Virgin  Birth 
would  rather  lead  us  to  conclude  that 
there  must  be  something  in  it,  just  as  the 
fact  that  some  kind  of  belief  in  God  has 
been  and  is  universal  in  an  argument  for 
and  not  against  God’s  existence”  [and 
just  as  the  fact  that  belief  in  the  resur¬ 
rection  of  the  body  by  the  ancient  Egyp¬ 
tians  and  others  may  serve  to  suggest 
that  God  was  preparing  mankind  for 
the  final  authoritative  revelation  of  this 
fact  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ].  “If  any¬ 
one  will  read  the  virgin  birth  stories  of 
other  religions,  or  even  the  accounts  of 
our  Lord’s  birth  that  are  found  in  the 
Apocryphal  New  Testament,  he  will  see 
that  they  are  not  to  be  mentioned  in  the 


100 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


same  breath  with  the  accounts  we  have 
in  the  first  and  third  Gospels.  We  do 
not  reject  the  Bible  because  other  re¬ 
ligions  have  sacred  books ;  one  of  our  rea¬ 
sons  for  accepting  it  is  that  it  is  so  dif¬ 
ferent  from  all  other  sacred  books  known 
to  us.  Just  so  we  do  not  reject  the  Virgin 
Birth  because  other  religions  have  taught 
birth  of  a  virgin,  but  our  faith  in  the 
Virgin  Birth  of  Christ  is  strengthened 
because  the  accounts  we  have  of  it  are  so 
much  more  delicate  and  refined,  so  much 
more  real,  and  on  a  so  much  higher  plane 
than  similar  accounts  we  know.” 

This  discussion  is  concluded  with  an¬ 
other  quotation  from  Dr.  Orr’s  famous 
and  matchless  classic — “The  Virgin  Birth 
of  Christ” — a  book  that  should  be  on  the 
desk  of  every  preacher  and  teacher,  and 
in  the  home  of  every  Christian.  In  sum¬ 
ming  up  his  conclusions  in  Chapter  six — 
“Mythical  Theories  of  Origin  of  Narra¬ 
tives  of  the  Virgin  Birth,  Alleged  Heathen 
Analogies,” — he  says: 

“The  theories  of  mythical  origin  have 
one  after  another  been  tried  and  found 
wanting.  The  Jewish  theories  confute  the 
Gentile;  the  Gentile  theories  confute  the 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  101 

Jewish;  the  new  Babylonian  theory  de¬ 
stroys  both,  and  itself  perishes  with  them. 
The  one  thing  that  does  not  crumble  be¬ 
neath  them  is  the  historical  fact”  of  the 
Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  in  our 
humanity. 


102 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


CHAPTER  VIII 

OBJECTION 

In  calling  himself  “the  Son  of 
man”  did  not  Jesus  Christ  virtually 
deny  the  story  of  his  Virgin  Birth 

This  title,  “the  Son  of  man,”  originated 
in  heaven.  It  was  the  name  which  God 
gave  to  his  great  prophet  Ezekiel,  thus 
making  him,  in  his  official  designation,  a 
type  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  his 
humanity,  who  is  the  prophet  of  the  new 
covenant  of  grace. 

The  prophet  Isaiah  also  presents  the 
Messiah  as  the  son  of  man,  the  suffering 
servant  of  Jehovah.  The  Jews  were  of¬ 
fended  at  this  conception  of  Messiah, 
hence  they  rebelled  against  what  they  be¬ 
lieved  to  be  a  scandously  degrading  no¬ 
tion  on  the  part  of  Isaiah.  They  were 
unable  to  comprehend  that  the  Messiah 
would  perform  a  sacrificial  ministry.  It 
was  probably  Isaiah’s  fifty-third  chapter, 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


103 


in  which  he  portrayed  the  nature,  suffer¬ 
ings  and  atonement  of  the  great  Deliverer, 
that  was  the  cause  of  his  rejection  by  the 
Jews.  And  the  Jewish  people  still  have 
the  scales  on  their  eyes — they  are  blind 
to  this  sublime  revelation  of  the  great 
plan  of  God  for  the  redemption  of  the 
world. 

How  beautiful  and  glorious  is  this  di¬ 
vine  title  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  It 
was  to  reveal  its  true  inner  significance, 
in  both  its  relation  to  his  divine  nature 
and  ministry  to  men,  that  our  Lord  so 
frequently  employed  the  term.  We  hear 
Him  ask  his  disciples:  “Whom  do  men 
say  that  I  the  Son  of  man  am?”  When 
Peter  gave  the  true  reply — 4  4  Thou  art 
the  Christ  the  Son  of  the  living  God,” 
our  Lord  at  once  made  it  clear  that  flesh 
and  blood  had  not  revealed  it  unto  Peter, 
but  his  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  And 
he  added:  “Upon  this  rock  I  will  build 
my  Church,”  and  no  power  shall  prevail 
against  it.  The  “rock”  undoubtedly  was 
Peter’s  true  confession  of  the  human  and 
divine  nature  of  Jesus  Christ,  for  our 
Lord  associated  both  titles  here  as  the 
supreme  revelation  of  himself — “the  Son 


104 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


of  man/’  and  “the  Son  of  the  living 
God.”  This  then  is  His  name,  in  which 
we  see  the  human  and  divine  blended  in 
One.  It  is  upon  the  confession  of  two  na¬ 
tures  in  one  Person — the  God-man — that 
the  Church  of  Christ  is  built,  and  apart 
from  this  faith  there  can  be  only  a  spuri¬ 
ous  Church — an  apostate  Christianity. 

Our  Lord’s  Humanity 

The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  patho¬ 
genetic  in  his  humanity,  the  procreation 
of  which  came  from  the  Virgin  Mary. 
The  two  human  sexes  are  singular  in  na¬ 
ture  for  Eve  was  taken  from  Adam.  It 
is  unnecessary  here  that  we  go  into  a 
discussion  of  what  some  term  “the  scien¬ 
tific  aspect  of  the  Incarnation,”  for  our 
Lord’s  birth  from  a  Virgin  cannot  find 
much  if  any  support  in  science,  even 
though  it  be  claimed  that  in  some  de¬ 
partments  of  nature  life  is  propagated  by 
one  sex.  The  true  Christian  accepts  the 
fact  on  the  basis  of  the  Word  of  God. 
That  is  sufficient  for  him.  He  believes  in 
the  inspiration  and  divine  authority  of 
the  Bible. 

The  first  Messianic  prophecy,  as  given 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


105 


in  Genesis  3 : 15,  states  that  it  is  the 
seed  of  the  woman,  and  not  of  the  man, 
that  shall  bruise  the  serpent’s  head. 
Thus  in  this  prediction  our  Lord  is  seen 
as  a  human  being  without  having  a  human 
father.  He  was  truly  human,  “very  man 
of  the  substance  of  the  Virgin  Mary  his 
mother,”  but  the  union  of  His  humanity 
with  His  God-head  could  not  in  any  sense 
make  inappropriate  the  designation  of 
Himself  as  “the  Son  of  man.”  He  was 
indeed  “bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of 
our  flesh,”  and  He  loved  to  speak  of 
Himself  as  “the  Son  of  man” — the  true 
Representative  of  humanity,  living  on 
man’s  level,  “the  servant  of  all.”  There 
was  a  just  and  holy  pride  in  His  great 
soul  when  He  declared:  “I  am  among 
you  as  he  that  serveth.” — Luke  22:27. 

Note  how  rich  and  full  of  profound  sig¬ 
nificance  is  the  revelation  which  He  gives 
of  Himself  in  the  following  words: 

“For  even  the  Son  of  man  came  not 
to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister  and 
to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many” 
or  as  the  Greek  has  it,  “in  the  place  of 
many.” — Mark  10:45. 

“The  Son  of  man  must  suffer  many 


106 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


things  .  .  .  and  after  that  he  is  killed 
he  shall  rise  the  third  day.” — Mark  9:31. 

“And  as  they  came  down  from  the 
mountain  he  charged  them  that  they  tell 
no  man  till  the  Son  of  man  were  risen 
from  the  dead.” — Mark  9:9. 

“And  then  shall  they  see  the  Son  of 
man  coming  in  the  clouds  with  great 
power  and  glory.  Mark  13:26. 

These  quotations  show  how  our  Lord 
loved  to  associate  the  title  “Son  of  Man” 
with  all  the  chief  events  in  his  wondrous 
life — with  his  most  humble  service,  with 
his  sufferings,  his  death  on  the  cross,  his 
Tesurrection,  and  his  coming  again  in 
glory.  He  is  ever  “the  Son  of  Man.” 

“A  great  High  Priest  our  nature  wears, 

The  guardian  of  mankind  appears.” 

Reason  for  Loving  Jesus  Christ 

And  this  is  one  of  the  principal  reasons 
why  our  blessed  Lord  has  captured  the 
imaginations  and  hearts  of  men — why  we 
love  him.  He  sacrificed  Himself  even 
unto  death  because  He  loved  us.  He 
assumed  the  limitations  of  man’s  life  be¬ 
cause  He  loved  us.  And  what  did  all 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


107 


this  involve!  Here  He  was  limited  in 
time  to  one  generation,  confined  to  a 
single  tongue,  heard  only  by  those  who 
came  within  range  of  His  voice;  and  the 
Word  which  He  was  eternally  with  the 
Father  is  now  tabernacled  in  flesh,  not 
so  much  to  reveal  as  to  veil  Omnipotence. 
He  assumed  the  nature  of  the  loveless, 
the  sinning  and  lost,  because  of  the  great 
moral  and  spiritual  possibilities  and 
needs  of  men,  and  because  He  loved  us  so. 

And  in  our  human  life  of  sorrow,  suf¬ 
fering  and  sin,  the  trials  and  struggles  of 
man  arose,  for  the  nature  which  He  had 
assumed  was  in  conflict  with  the  good. 
Temptations  assailed  Him  from  every 
side,  “yet  without  sin.”  It  is  little  we 
know  of  the  struggles  beneath  the  calm 
surface  of  His  life.  How  alive  He  be¬ 
came  to  the  problems  of  our  heart-broken 
world !  He  suffered  and  loved  as  only  the 
purest  nature,  the  holiest  Being  could 
suffer  and  love.  In  His  ears  poured  the 
cries  of  broken-hearted  mothers,  aban¬ 
doned  sinners — demon-possessed  men.  0 
the  glory  of  this  suffering  Servant  of 
Jehovah!  How  near  He  has  come  to  us, 


108 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


and  His  glory  lies  in  that  He  has  come  so 
near  to  us. 

God  Made  Known 

But  it  was  necessary  that  our  Lord 
should  thus  become  “the  Son  of  man”  in 
order  to  reveal  God,  for  how  can  we 
conceive  of  the  Infinite  Personality  being 
made  intelligible  and  real  to  us  but 
through  a  human  personality.  We  feel 
this  as  a  need  on  our  part,  and  the  only 
response  to  that  need  is  found  in  Him 
who  is  the  revelation  of  God  to  man  and 
man  to  himself,  i.e.,  as  man  is  and  as  he 
appears  in  the  divine  Ideal  of  manhood. 
Apart  from  Jesus  Christ— “the  Son  of 
man”  and  Son  of  God — the  special  revela¬ 
tion  of  God  is  greatly  restricted.  Even 
the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  to  reveal 
our  blessed  Lord.  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
center  of  all  revelation  as  recorded  in 
the  Bible.  The  universe  suggests  and  con¬ 
firms  our  faith  in  a  Supreme  Intelligence, 
but  it  cannot  reveal  to  us  the  heart  of  our 
Father-God.  Hence  God  comes  to  man 
through  man.  “Christ  emptied  himself — 
Phil.  2 : 7 — not  of  his  deity,  but  of  its 
form;  not  of  the  divine  reality,  but  of  its 
outward  and  glorious  manifestation.” 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


109 


Here,  in  Him,  we  see  God  and  may  know 
God  as  our  Father.  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
ladder  Jacob  saw  which  unites  earth  to 
heaven.  In  Him  God  and  man  meet  on 
ground  of  pardon,  everlasting  friend¬ 
ship  and  peace.  As  our  Lord  said:  “he 
that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father,” 
— John  14:9 — and  to  see  God  in  Jesus 
Christ  is  to  know  God  and  love  him. 
Through  Jesus  Christ  we  come  face  to 
face  with  the  Father.  “And  this  is  life 
eternal,  that  they  might  know  thee  the 
only  true  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom 
thou  hast  sent.” — John  17:3.  Therefore 
only  He  could  say:  “I  am  the  way  the 
truth  and  the  life.” — John  14:6.  He  is 
the  way  to  life,  for  He  is  the  principle  of 
union  between  God  and  man  through 
whom  that  union  is  realized  in  us.  In 
Him  we  see  the  original  type  of  man  in 
all  his  freshness  and  glory.  All  hail ! 
thou  perfect  “Son  of  man,”  and  Son  of 
God,  heaven’s  unselfish  Visitor,  seeking 
through  our  eyes  and  hearts  the  race  of 
men.  We  wonder  not  that  angels  an¬ 
nounced  His  nativity  and  one  of  nature’s 
luminaries  escorted  the  shepherds  to  His 
infant  abode. 


110 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


The  Supreme  Revelation 

The  Virgin  Birth  of  onr  Lord  was  a 
necessary  disclosure  of  the  wondrous  reve¬ 
lation  of  God’s  love  for  the  world.  Love, 
which  is  an  attribute  of  deity,  was  the 
eternal  motive  which  moved  the  Son  of 
God  to  become  “the  Son  of  man”  in  his 
Incarnation.  Llis  birth  was  a  nativity  of 
love;  His  words  were  jewels  of  love;  His 
miracles  were  wonders  of  love ;  His  death 
was  the  epitome  of  love;  His  resurrection 
was  the  logical  triumph  of  love;  and  His 
personal  reappearance  and  man’s  de¬ 
liverance  from  the  last  enemy — death — 
will  be  the  everlasting  confirmation  and 
eternal  glory  of  His  love. 

But  words  are  utterly  impotent  here; 
they  cannot  portray  the  life  of  “the  Son 
of  man”;  even  His  works  of  greatest 
mercy  reveal  not  the  depths  of  his  infinite 
heart.  They  are  as  drops  to  the  ocean, 
as  sparks  to  the  sun,  as  grains  of  golden 
sand  glistening  in  a  tiny  outflow  from  a 
mountain  of  richest  gems.  The  Virgin 
Birth,  the  lowly  manger,  the  humble  ser¬ 
vice  at  the  bench,  the  restless  nights,  the 
weary  limbs,  the  human  poverty,  the  ach- 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


111 


ing  heart,  the  dark  Gethsemane,  the 
bloody  sweat,  the  pierced  feet,  the  awful 
cross,  the  redeeming  death  all  speak  elo¬ 
quently  ;  yet  this  can  only  give  but  a 
glimpse  of  the  great  love  of  “the  Son  of 
man.”  At  His  death,  that  wondrous 
event  at  which  the  sun  veiled  his  face,  we 
see  God’s  love  pleading  with  a  wayward, 
sorrowing  world.  0  mighty  Christ  of 
Calvary,  how  wonderful !  Calvary,  be¬ 
cause  of  what  transpired  there  for  men, 
became  the  center  of  the  universe.  There 
is  no  place  like  Calvary.  It  is  better  to 
go  to  Calvary  than  to  college.  Here  we 
learn  the  great  philosophy — the  philoso¬ 
phy  of  love.  Here  we  learn  the  greatest 
of  all  the  sciences,  the  science  of  redemp¬ 
tion.  “Here  words  fail,  their  backs  are 
broken,  they  cannot  tell  the  story.”  At 
His  lovely  cross  “the  Son  of  man”  and 
Son  of  God  gives  the  true  revelation  of 
sin,  righteousness  and  pardon.  It  is  here 
that  He  bestows  sight  for  blindness,  pur¬ 
ity  for  filth,  robes  for  rags,  love  for  hate, 
light  for  darkness,  life  for  death,  and  the 
pardon,  joy  and  peace  of  heaven  for  the 
guilt  and  sorrow  and  curse  of  sin.  It  was 
a  vision  of  the  love  of  “the  Son  of  man,” 


112 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


and  Son  of  God  that  Saul  of  Tarsus  had 
on  the  way  to  Damascus,  and  that  won  his 
life  and  made  him  lay  down  his  weapons 
of  warfare  and  do  homage  to  Christ.  It 
was  this  vision,  of  the  love  of  God  in 
Christ  for  sinful  men,  that  conquered  the 
proud  Roman  Empire  and  that  shall  yet 
conquer  the  world.  0  wondrous  “Son  of 
man  ’  ’  and  Son  of  God ! — very  man  of  very 
man,  very  God  of  very  God,  perfect  in 
His  humanity,  altogether  glorious  in  His 
deity,  the  victorious  Champion,  Saviour 
and  Leader  of  men. 


"Son  of  man,  they  crown,  they  crown 
Him; 

Son  of  God,  they  own,  they  own  Him; 

With  His  name  all  heaven  rings.” 

In  the  light  of  all  the  facts  connected 
with  this  divine  designation  of  Himself, 
as  “the  Son  of  man,”  surely  we  find  an 
argument  for  rather  than  against  the  fact 
of  His  Incarnation. 

The  objection  to  Christianity  by  the 
old  philosopher  Celsus  of  the  third  cen¬ 
tury  was,  that  the  appeal  of  the  Gospel  of 
Christ  was  to  the  sinful  and  lost. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH  113 

He  says:  “In  our  mysteries  those  are 
invited  to  come  nigh  who  are  of  clean 
hands  and  pure  speech,  who  are  unstained 
by  crime,  who  have  a  good  conscience 
toward  God,  who  have  done  justly  and 
lived  uprightly.  The  Christians  say, 
‘Come  to  us,  ye  who  are  sinners,  ye  who 
are  fools  or  children,  ye  who  are  misera¬ 
ble,  and  ye  shall  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.’  Christ,  say  they,  was  sent  to 
save  sinners.  Was  he  not  sent  to  help 
those  who  have  kept  themselves  from  sin? 
They  pretend  that  God  will  save  the  un¬ 
just  man  if  he  repents  and  humbles  him¬ 
self.” 

“Such  indeed  is,”  as  Philip  Mauro  has 
well  said:  “the  voice  of  the  wisdom  of 
this  world ;  and  the  teachings  of  the 
Jewish  Rabbis  of  Christ’s  day,  as  to  sin¬ 
ners  was  practically  the  same.  ’  ’  And  such 
would  be  the  viewpoint  of  the  world  today 
had  not  Jesus  Christ  come  and  given  an 
entirely  new  revelation  of  God’s  love  and 
salvation  for  men. 

Celsus  unwittingly  has  given  a  remark¬ 
able  eulogy  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  did  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees  in  our  Lord’s  day. 
They  also  said,  with  scorn  and  contempt, 


114 


THE  MODERN  MIND 


“This  man  receiveth  sinners  and  eateth 
with  them.” — Luke  15:2.  Glory  to  His 
name !  “For  the  Son  of  man  has  come  to 
seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost.”— 
Luke  19 : 10. 

Recapitulation 

Having  submitted  the  argument  in  be¬ 
half  of  the  Virgin  Birth  of  our  Lord,  we 
now  conclude  with  a  recapitulation  as 
'follows : 

1.  It  is  obvious  that  science  does  not 
and  cannot  consistently  deny  the  Virgin 
Birth  of  Christ. 

2.  The  only  two  accounts  we  have  of 
the  earthly  origin  of  our  Lord  tell  us  that 
he  was  begotten  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and 
born  of  a  Virgin. 

3.  These  records,  as  given  by  Matthew 
and  Luke,  are  admitted  by  all  scholars  of 
nearly  every  shade  of  opinion,  to  be  genu¬ 
ine  products  of  the  Apostolic  Age. 

4.  “These  Gospels  have  come  down  to 
us  in  their  integrity.” — Dr.  Orr. 

5.  The  records,  as  given  by  Matthew 
and  Luke,  are  complementary  and  inde¬ 
pendent,  and  show  that  these  writers  did 
not  compare  notes. 


AND  THE  VIRGIN  BIRTH 


115 


6.  These  records  are  not  contradictory 
but  corroborative  of  each  other. 

7.  The  writings  of  Mark,  John  and 
Paul  do  not  contradict  Matthews  and 
Luke,  but  assume  the  birth  of  our  Lord 
from  a  Virgin. 

8.  No  other  reasonable  explanation 
can  be  given  of  the  unique  personality, 
teachings  and  supernatural  power  of 
Jesus  Christ  apart  from  belief  in  his  Vir¬ 
gin  Birth. 

9.  The  doctrine  of  divine  immanence 
cannot  account  for  Jesus  Christ. 

10.  No  exact  interpretation  can  be 
given  of  our  Lord’s  teachings  concerning 
himself  apart  from  the  fact  that  he  was 
the  incarnate  Son  of  God. 

11.  The  disciples  of  our  Lord  did  not 
hold  two  traditions  concerning  him,  one 
that  he  was  the  son  of  Joseph,  the  other 
that  he  was  Virgin  born. 

12.  The  Virgin  Birth  was  an  article  of 
Christian  faith  and  believed  by  the 
Church  from  its  beginning. 

13.  The  Virgin  Birth  of  our  Lord  is 
obviously  a  fulfilment  of  prophecy. 

14.  Many  of  the  most  eminent  biblical 
scholars,  including  Harnack,  admit  that 


116  The  Modern  Mind  and  the  Virgin  Birth 

the  story  of  our  Lord’s  earthly  origin 
could  not  have  originated  in  pagan  myths. 

15.  The  glorious  doctrine  of  the  Virgin 
Birth  clearly  implies  a  miracle  in  our 
Lord’s  human  origin. 

16.  The  significance  of  the  Virgin  Birth 
cannot  be  understood  apart  from  the 
purpose  for  which  our  Lord  came  into  the 
world,  namely,  to  save  sinners,  to  create 
new  spiritual  life  in  men,  To  establish  a 

«V  spiritual  kingdom,  and  this  is  the  work 
of  God  alone. 


DATE  DUE 


mw# 

■  ■  ji»niw- 

’rnammm 

,„,•.  I-— 

' 

(^^->*MS?«!Sit4.-«| 

». 

|&g. 

Allf)  n 

P  ?ntfi 

*•  wfu 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.  A. 

•;  f  ' 


